This will be a bit of an adventure in blogsmanship, but I’m going to attempt to start pasting a number of articles directly onto this page dealing with China and the PACOM aor. This could get to be a bit lenghty so please bear with me.
Wall Street Journal
November 18, 2011
Pg. 12
To Parry China, U.S. Looks To Sea Treaty It Hasn’t Signed
By Keith Johnson and Laura Meckler
WASHINGTON-The Obama administration’s growing role in mediating regional tensions around the South China Sea has stirred new interest in an international maritime treaty that supporters say would advance U.S. goals, especially its demands for restraint by China.
A main goal for President Barack Obama in talks at this week’s East Asia security summit in Indonesia is easing territorial disputes between China and its neighbors before the conflicting claims become a flashpoint for conflict. China has said it doesn’t want the disputes discussed at the summit.
Mr. Obama’s emphasis on promoting the rule of law, especially where China is concerned, is encouraging those who support the Law of the Sea treaty, a 1982 global legal framework under United Nations auspices that the U.S., alone among major nations, has never ratified.
Boosters of the controversial treaty say ratification would help the U.S. defend the international order it created after World War II. That is especially important as Washington tries to coax Beijing into abiding by global rules governing issues such as free trade, intellectual property and international relations.
“At the end of the day are we better off promoting a rules-based international order? I think we are, as a status quo country,” said James Kraska, an international-law expert at the Naval War College.
More directly, supporters say Senate ratification would help U.S. efforts to parry Chinese attempts to claim much of the South China Sea, a resource-rich conduit for roughly $5 trillion in yearly global trade.
“In the ongoing tension over rights in the South China Sea, the United States will be in a stronger position of influence by joining the [Law of the Sea] convention,” said Jonathan Greenert, the U.S. chief of naval operations, in comments this summer.
The treaty has a broad base of support among former presidents of both parties, secretaries of state, military officials, business groups, and environmentalists. But some staunch conservatives oppose it, pointing to the opposition of President Ronald Reagan and arguing it would erode U.S. sovereignty by ceding power to international bodies.
And just signing the treaty, they say, doesn’t mean countries will comply with international law-China already is a signatory, while legal experts say Chinese attempts to claim the bulk of the South China Sea goes against both the letter and the spirit of the law, which lays out that a country’s exclusive economic zone extends 200 miles from its shores.
“The Chinese aren’t obeying the rules they signed up for. They don’t even obey the black letter of the law of the treaty,” said Stephen Groves, an international-law expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. “What difference would it make if we were a party to the treaty?”
Senate treaty supporters formed a Senate Oceans Caucus in September to promote ratification, among other goals. However, they consider ratification unlikely anytime soon and Obama administration officials, while supporting approval, do not appear to be pushing it.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said he believes U.S. ratification would “enhance our security posture” by giving the U.S. legal backing to defend freedom of navigation in places like the South China Sea and the Straits of Hormuz, which handles about 20% of the world’s oil shipments.
For the last four years, the Pentagon has warned that China is resorting to the use of “legal warfare” to expand its position in Asia, compiling scholarly and legal research to advance its interpretations of international law, to the detriment of neighbors.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an appearance in the Philippines this week that the U.S. wants to see “the Law of the Sea used as the overriding framework for handling territorial disputes.” China has repeatedly asserted that it prefers addressing any dispute with its neighbors one by one, rather than multilaterally.
But proponents of the treaty argue there is a contradiction in Washington’s position, as it encourages others to follow international laws-specifically maritime laws-while the U.S. itself has never ratified it.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee last voted on the treaty in 2007, approving it by a 17-4 vote. The full Senate has yet to consider the treaty.
Administration officials say the lack of ratification isn’t a problem, because the U.S. follows the maritime provisions of the law. “The U.S. is standing up for norms like freedom of navigation that other nations support,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama.
Even supporters of the treaty acknowledge that it wouldn’t solve maritime disputes overnight. The U.S. Navy defends freedom of navigation dozens of times a year by steaming warships into contested waters, and would still do so even if the U.S. ratified the treaty.
But at a time when Beijing is increasingly using legal warfare, “appearances count,” said James Holmes, a China expert at the Naval War College.
“Our being seen as outsiders to the Law of the Sea makes an enormous difference,” because it gives Chinese officials free rein to ignore U.S. demands to play by the rules, he said.
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President Obama Will Announce Increased Marine Presence during Australia Visit Murray Hiebert and Kiet Nguyen November 16, 2011
President Barack Obama will visit Australia on November 16–17 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty and reestablish U.S. leadership in the Asia-Pacific region. His arrival in Canberra will mark his first visit to Australia as president and the first U.S. presidential visit since George W. Bush arrived in Sydney in 2007 for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. While reaffirming the historic security relationship between the United States and Australia, Obama will also emphasize economic ties through the nine-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement under negotiation.
The president’s two previously planned visits in 2010 were canceled due to the congressional vote on his healthcare bill and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Australia has fought alongside the United States in every major conflict since World War II, and the longstanding U.S. ally participates in a broad range of issues, including the war in Afghanistan, sanctions against Iran, nuclear nonproliferation, and a mutually beneficial free trade framework. This Critical Questions explores Obama’s trip and what it will do to bolster U.S. efforts to counterbalance potential threats in Asia, including in the disputed South China Sea.
The president’s two-day visit highlights a recent diplomatic surge to deepen relations with countries in the South Pacific. An interagency delegation composed of leaders from the Departments of Defense and State and the U.S. Agency for International Development underlined a whole-of-government approach in a visit to the Pacific Islands in June and July 2011. Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides led the highest-ranking U.S. delegation ever to the Pacific Island Forum in New Zealand in September 2011.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta advanced a deeper level of cyber and military cooperation with their Australian counterparts in San Francisco two months ago at the annual Australia–United States Ministerial Consultations. Obama’s visit this week is diplomatically symbolic and will lock in U.S. cooperation with its most important ally in the South Pacific during “America’s Pacific Century.”
Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kim Beazley said, “The fact that he’s turning up is in itself enormously important” after rescheduling two trips. The bilateral relationship is “basically being changed, not so much by how Americans and Australians see each other but by geopolitics. Australia’s geographic location is becoming increasingly important to the U.S.”
Recent efforts by the Obama administration have sought to harmonize U.S. and Australian policy in East Asia and the Pacific by strengthening the alliance through enhanced levels of military and cyber security cooperation, interoperability, and regional security. The president will reaffirm relations through a long-awaited visit to Australia, an announcement to increase the U.S. military presence, and a speech spelling out his vision of U.S. interests in Asia.
Q1: What deliverables are expected from the visit?
A1: President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard are expected to announce an increase in the number of U.S. Marines rotating through Australian bases around the northern coastal city of Darwin, which serves as a critical gateway to Southeast Asia through Indonesia and East Timor. U.S. officials say the United States is not setting up any permanent military bases in Australia. Instead, the United States will rely on Australian military facilities, while withdrawing forces from Afghanistan as the war draws down. The activities of the U.S. Marines will include training and joint exercises. The United States and Australia are also discussing the prepositioning of supplies to better respond to natural disasters.
Q2: What is the president’s agenda during the visit?
A2: On November 16, President Obama will meet with Prime Minister Gillard and answer questions in a joint press conference. The president will also be hosted at an official dinner at Parliament House later that evening.
On November 17, President Obama will lay a wreath at an Australian war memorial and meet briefly with Tony Abbott, the opposition leader. He will then address a special session of Parliament. U.S. officials say the speech will be a broad description of how the United States sees the Asia-Pacific region and what his administration is doing to “strengthen our core alliances to engage emerging powers like China and India and others.”
The president will visit a primary school with the prime minister and stop at the U.S. embassy. Obama will then fly to Darwin where he will visit a memorial to the USS Peary, a naval destroyer that sank during the Palau invasion in World War II, and he will address Australian military positioned in this northern coastal city about U.S.-Australia security cooperation.
Q3: Why is Australia important to the United States?
A3: Australia is the most important U.S. treaty ally in the South Pacific. At a time when Japan is dealing with economic and political woes, Australia is stepping up its military and economic influence in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Australia is the most reliable ally in the region on a broad range of issues of interest to the United States. The proximity of Australia also serves as a key anchor at the crossroads of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The United States has played a critical role in the economic development of Australia during the past 20 years, as the largest foreign direct investor in Australia, providing about 30 percent more investment than China. The United States has run a trade surplus with Australia since the two countries completed a free trade agreement that went into effect in 2005.
Australia is a Western ally that has close economic ties with China, while at the same time it serves as a counterweight to that rising economic and military power in East Asia. “Australia is basically a western country in Asia with a strong history and alliance with the U.S. and massive trade ties with China,” said Peter Kenyon, professor of economic policy at Curtin University. “[Australia] can act as a conduit for ideas from the U.S. and China, and discreetly report back to each side through diplomatic relationships.”
Murray Hiebert is senior fellow and deputy director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Kiet Nguyen is a researcher with the CSIS Southeast Asia Program.
Critical Questions is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
© 2011 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.
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November 2, 2011 | 1221 GMT
APEC, EAS Meetings a Test of the U.S. Re-engagement in Asia HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images A U.S. destroyer sits in Da Nang, Vietnam Summary
Two upcoming multilateral forums, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting Nov. 12-13 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and the East Asia Summit (EAS) on Nov. 18-19 in Bali, Indonesia, will be key indicators of the progress of the U.S. re-engagement strategy in Asia. The strategy, originally announced in 2009, has consisted mostly of rhetoric from the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama. However, with two wars winding down in the Middle East and South Asia, Washington has begun to turn its attention elsewhere, specifically to a surging China. While it has much to do to shape strategic and economic institutions such as the EAS and APEC in its favor, Obama’s upcoming tour could accelerate the shift in the Asia-Pacific power balance.
Analysis
U.S. President Barack Obama will embark on a tour of Australia and Indonesia in November. He also will host a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) on Nov. 12-13 in Honolulu, Hawaii, and attend the sixth East Asia Summit (EAS) on Nov. 18-19 in Bali, Indonesia – the first time the United States will participate in the summit as a full member. These activities culminate a series of diplomatic visits and rhetoric, from Obama’s national security and economic teams, intended to demonstrate the United States’ renewed commitment to the Asia-Pacific region and to link the region with U.S. national interests.
The U.S. strategy of re-engagement with East Asia, first announced in 2009 <https://webmail.usnwc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090126_obama_administration_and_east_asia> , is somewhat misleading, since in many ways the United States never disengaged with the region. However, Washington’s focus over the past decade has largely centered on the Middle East and South Asia. This, combined with a rapid expansion of Chinese political and economic influence in the region, led to a perception that Washington’s interests in East Asia were waning. Now that it is preparing to withdraw remaining troops from Iraq and wind down its operations in Afghanistan, the Obama administration can use more resources to expand its involvement in East Asia <https://webmail.usnwc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20111026-portfolio-us-re-engages-east-asia> . While Washington has much to do to shape the economic and strategic institutions in its favor, Obama’s upcoming tour could accelerate the shift in the Asia-Pacific power balance.
Wary of China’s Rise
China’s military has grown increasingly assertive in recent years, with the People’s Liberation Army taking a greater role in Chinese policy decisions. In particular, the military’s strategy to develop a blue-water expeditionary navy <
https://webmail.usnwc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090323_part_1_china_s_new_need_maritime_focus> has enabled it to shift focus toward attaining greater control of sea routes, particularly in the South China Sea <https://webmail.usnwc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090512_china_beijing_strengthens_its_claims_south_china_sea> , in the past few years. During this period, Beijing has attempted to build relationships with other countries in the region, but concerns over the threat of Chinese hard power have led Asia-Pacific countries increasingly to call for greater U.S. involvement in the region to counterbalance China’s rising influence.
China’s rise, especially its aggressive maritime strategy <
https://webmail.usnwc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20100811_us_china_conflicting_interests_southeast_asia> , presents a challenge to key U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific region. U.S. global power rests on its control of the oceans <https://webmail.usnwc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110824-geopolitics-united-states-part-1-inevitable-empire> , and the United States sees East Asia as a main stage for political and economic relations in the near future. The Obama administration thus has invested considerable political capital in Asia since Washington’s 2009 re-engagement announcement.
Bilaterally, the United States has moved beyond relationships with its traditional Pacific allies – such as Australia, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea – to emerging regional powers such as Indonesia and India. Washington is looking to boost its standing in Indonesia, which historically has been a regional leader on an array of issues, with increased military cooperation and through the U.S.-Indonesia Comprehensive Partnership, as well as by attending this year’s Indonesia-hosted EAS. With India, the United States has moved beyond economic relations to strategic cooperation, particularly over maritime issues. Washington also is approaching traditional Chinese allies such as Laos, Cambodia and the military-ruled Myanmar.
Washington also is working to shape multilateral regional institutions, both as a means of unifying other countries against China and to prevent a powerful regional coalition from taking shape that does not involve the United States. The institutions with which Washington is working include the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – described by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the “fulcrum for the region’s emerging architecture” – and several ASEAN-led economic and strategic institutions, including the EAS and APEC. The United States also is working with a number of sub-regional blocs such as the Pacific Islands Forum and the Mekong River Summit <
Washington is particularly interested in APEC and EAS, the structures and agendas of which are in the process of being reshaped, allowing the United States a greater say in their futures. Obama’s upcoming meetings thus represent two critical anchors for the U.S. re-engagement strategy.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
APEC was established in 1989 in Canberra, Australia, with the purpose of bringing together several dynamic economies from across the Pacific Rim. Gradually, the group grew to include 21 member states, including the United States, and became the region’s premier economic organization. APEC’s member countries are vital to U.S. trade interests – together, they represent 60 percent of U.S. goods exports – as well as to the global economy, and Washington has thus used the bloc to exercise greater economic influence in the region. However, the rise of a number of other regional economic blocs in the past decade that were largely led independently by Asian countries – or dominated by China – have caused APEC to wane in significance, and the United States thus has been looking for other avenues to shape Asian trade policy.
To this end, the United States announced in 2008 that it would enter negotiations in a multilateral free trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP). The original TPP went into effect in 2006 and included just Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. Soon after the 2008 U.S. announcement, Australia, Malaysia, Peru and Vietnam all joined talks. Countries such as Canada, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan have since also shown interest. The United States’ engagement has significantly accelerated the negotiations, and Washington is in the process of finalizing bilateral free trade agreements with participant countries. The Obama administration hopes to announce a framework for the TPP at this year’s APEC forum, though this may be delayed. Despite domestic deadlock over the issue in Vietnam and Japan, Washington hopes the agreement will improve trans-Pacific trade relations, lay the foundation for a U.S-led free trade agenda, and improve Asian perceptions of the U.S. commitment to the region.
Conspicuously absent from TPP discussions is China. Beijing expressed an interest in joining the partnership, given the involvement of so many important trade partners. However, a U.S.-led trade agenda would mean China would only be able to participate by opening its economy in ways shaped by the United States. China’s exclusion is receiving some resistance from smaller players in the negotiations, who are concerned that such a move would undermine their economic relations with Beijing. China may become involved in the TPP in the long term, but absent an ability to shape the institution’s agenda, Beijing perceives it as counter to its economic interest.
The East Asia Summit
The genesis for the EAS was a 1991 proposal by Malaysia for a counterweight to Western-dominated trade blocs. Its first meeting was held in 2005, included 16 countries with Russia as an observer – and did not include the United States. Washington originally perceived the summit as an attempt by member countries to exclude U.S. influence from the region, but as part of its re-engagement strategy recently shifted its position and will participate in the summit as a full member for the first time this year <
The EAS began as an energy and economic meeting. It has begun to reshape its agenda and structure and this has provided a flexible platform for the United States to evolve the group to focus on regional security affairs and eventually become the pre-eminent institution for Asia-Pacific security issues. In the meantime, Washington hopes the summit will shape the agenda of other regional mechanisms, such as ASEAN.
Several regional players have welcomed U.S. involvement in the EAS, seeing it as an important counterbalance to Chinese dominance, particularly in maritime disputes, as China’s growing maritime assertiveness has raised tensions in the South China Sea. In this context, overtures from Washington this year could help gauge its commitment to Asia-Pacific security – specifically to so-called freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Southeast Asian countries, as well as interested third parties such as Japan and India <
https://webmail.usnwc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110923-india-vietnam-testing-chinas-patience> , have undertaken an intense diplomatic campaign <https://webmail.usnwc.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110929-japan-taking-new-role-south-china-sea> to bring broader international attention to the issue. While these efforts are not solely directed at the United States, they did help unify countries in the region against Beijing, which plays into Washington’s strategy.
China is closely monitoring the South China Sea issue, and Beijing is particularly concerned that the United States could introduce measures through the EAS that signal a further commitment to the issue. While a single summit is unlikely to effect significant change, it could signal a shift in the direction of the bloc under U.S. leadership.
However, the United States needs to resolve several issues before it can fully reshape the EAS into a security-focused institution, the foremost being the considerations of ASEAN countries themselves. These countries would need to balance the advantages of greater U.S. strategic involvement in the region against their relations with China – and weigh the potential for being caught in the middle of intense competition between Washington and Beijing. That calculation will be especially difficult given the remaining gap between U.S. re-engagement rhetoric and actions. Another question is how the EAS will differentiate itself from other security-focused ASEAN sub-blocs such as the ASEAN Regional Forum. A U.S. leadership role in a dominant EAS would run counter to ASEAN’s intention of shaping its agenda without Western influence.
The United States, after more than a decade of absence from Asian institution-building, is attempting to lead the creation of a new Asia-Pacific economic organization that enshrines American economic principles and strategic agendas. For this plan to bear fruit, the United States may attempt to demonstrate new developments and commitments to facilitate the evolution of U.S.-led regional institutions.
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Reuters.com
November 10, 2011
Near Pacific Summit Site, Reminder Of U.S. Security Role
By Paul Eckert, Reuters
HONOLULU — The wealthy nations attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii may fight over trade, but they’ve avoided serious armed conflict for decades, and the U.S. Pacific Command aims to keep it that way, even as it copes with budget pressures and a surging China.
The regional prosperity that APEC leaders will celebrate and vow to nurture this weekend in President Barack Obama’s native Honolulu owes much to heavy lifting by American military personnel patrolling the vast Pacific Ocean and directed from Hawaii.
“We’ve seen over the past 30-plus years the region really blossom both economically and politically and people tend to forget or not even realize a reason for that is that the United States has ensured stability in Asia and the Asia-Pacific,” said Michael Mazza, a security expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington.
The Hawaii-based U.S. Pacific Command and the network of alliances it has built up since World War Two kept the Soviet Union and regional rivalries at bay, contributing to the spectacular economic growth of APEC members Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and many Southeast Asian countries.
“We’ve gotten rich as well and we’ve benefited greatly from economic development in Asia that may not have happened absent the U.S. military presence,” said Mazza, co-author of a new study on upgrading the U.S. alliance network for new challenges.
But ironically, China — the fastest-growing and largest trade partner for most of APEC’s 21 member economies — has benefited greatly from the U.S.-led Asian security architecture, too. That creates an awkward formula in which many Asia-Pacific states look to Beijing for economic growth but to Washington for security.
Based just outside Honolulu where a former U.S. naval hospital built in a sugar cane field overflowed with wounded American troops in 1945, USPACOM covers an area from California to India that is home to five of the world’s 10 biggest economies.
USPACOM’s area of responsibility comprises half the globe. On any given day, the U.S. Navy has 50 to 60 ships in the region, protecting sea lanes in the South China Sea that carry $5 trillion in commerce annually, including $1.2 trillion in trade with the United States, Admiral Robert Willard, the head of Pacific Command, said in a September interview with Reuters.
Some 325,000 military and civilian personnel, or about one-fifth of total U.S. military strength, serve under USPACOM, including about 80,000 troops stationed in Japan and South Korea, according to command data.
U.S. power and reach is multiplied by formal mutual defense treaties with Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand, as well as less formal partnerships with states including Singapore, Indonesia and India.
Lately, Willard and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have gone to great lengths to reassure allies that the U.S. military will maintain a strong posture in the Pacific despite looming defense spending cuts at home.
Panetta, on his first trip to Asia since taking over the Pentagon’s top job in July, said the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq this year and the gradual drawdown in Afghanistan would enable Washington to refocus on the Asia-Pacific region.
“We are not anticipating any cutbacks in this region. If anything we are going to strengthen our presence in the Pacific,” Panetta said in Tokyo last month.
Fiscal troubles are putting pressure on U.S. military power in the Pacific as China’s two decades of nearly unbroken double-digit growth military spending have yielded advances. While still well behind the United States in many respects, its efforts include a nascent aircraft carrier program, prototype stealth fighter jet and anti-ship ballistic missiles.
A study of U.S. alliances produced by a nonpartisan Washington think tank called the Project 2049 Institute says China benefited greatly from U.S. military primacy that contained the Soviet Union and suppressed Asian military rivalries.
The Obama administration would like China to share more of the burden and follow more of the rules of the existing global system that has buttressed its rise. But the report suggested that is unlikely.
“China, unlike its Asian peers, does not appear content with the American-made and -dominated international order,” said the report, which warned that Beijing’s dissatisfaction and ambitions are stoking U.S.-China security competition.
“Beijing is neither a candidate for the kind of benign hegemonic rule that others would find legitimate, nor much interested in aiding Washington in shouldering global responsibilities.”
A proposal a Chinese Navy officer made to Willard’s predecessor, Admiral Timothy Keating, several years ago — that China and the United States draw a line down the middle of the Pacific Ocean and each control a side — was brushed off as a tongue-in-cheek remark.
But China’s shift in 2010 toward a truculent stance over contested territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea is no laughing matter to leaders who will join Obama in Honolulu and also meet the following week at the East Asian Summit on the Indonesian island of Bali.
For them, a visit to the watery battleship graveyard at nearby Pearl Harbor, some three weeks before the 70th anniversary of the 1941 Japanese attack, would underscore how vital it is to get the rise of a emerging power right.
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Navy times article I mentioned in class:
‘Assuring Allies, Deterring Challengers’
NAVY TIMES 14 NOV 11
Pacific’s top officer on how to face ‘assertive’ China during drawdown… Gidget Fuentes SAN DIEGO –
On his recent trip to Washington, Adm. Robert Willard made a pitch to retain, if not bolster, U.S. military forces once troops leave Iraq and Afghanistan. Willard, the military’s top officer in the Pacific since 2009, has crisscrossed the Asia-Pacific region in his two years as head of Hawaii-based U.S. Pacific Command, overseeing the military’s largest unified combatant command that lives and operates in what he calls “a very challenging area of the world.”
His Pentagon trip in the first week of November came on the heels of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s weeklong travel to Asia, during which the Pentagon chief reinforced his intent to maintain U.S. military presence in the region. While U.S. military forces in the past decade largely have been focused on the two wars in the Middle East region, security concerns remain primary in the Asia-Pacific region. The region includes five major U.S. trading partners, busy shipping lanes for international commerce, contested islands and ocean resources, transnational terrorist networks, nuclear and missile threats from an unstable North Korea, and China’s growing military that seeks to develop a fleet of aircraft carriers. Then there are natural disasters – U.S. ships and forces deployed and operating in the region often serve as first-responders.
Asia-Pacific has “some of the most consequential nations in the world located there – all potentially partners, some potentially challengers,” said Willard, who held a media roundtable Oct. 24 during a two-day visit to San Diego. “The question is: Can the nation manage the region? and from a security standpoint, Can our armed forces support this region in a way that permits the prosperity that we’ve enjoyed for so many years now?”
Regional issues are familiar ground for Willard, a veteran F-14 Tomcat pilot who commanded U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. He also commanded Japan-based 7th Fleet and was Carrier Strike Group 5 commander aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk in Yokosuka, Japan. Those experiences provide perspectives about cultural and political sensitivities in the diverse region that may come in handy as he guides the command through the military’s broader budget cuts and postwar drawdown.
Questions and responses from the roundtable are edited for space.
Q. Is the Pacific better positioned today to argue that is going to demand more attention and forces?
A. We made two decisions in terms of distribution of fleet assets while I was the PACFLEET commander: One was 60 percent of submarines in the Pacific, the other was 60 percent of operational aircraft carriers in the Pacific. So the shift has already occurred. … Certainly, the forces that we have been contributing to the Middle East over the past 10 years, we look forward to their return to the Pacific. So there has been about a 10 percent deficit at any given time over 10 years as we contributed Pacific Fleet forces, mainly Army and Marine Corps, to the Middle East region. The Middle East remains a very difficult area for the United States and the rest of the world from a security standpoint, so there will have to be an ongoing investment made there. But I don’t think that it will continue to impact the Asia-Pacific in the way that two wars have.
Q. How much of a threat is China in the coming decade?
A. Managing China’s expansion … is a strategic challenge and takes up a great deal of my time. I am trying to advance the relationship…. This past year has been better in terms of the extent of (… ?) So we are there as a deterrent force and we are also there as an assurance force, I think, for the allies and partners that rely on us.
Q. Are we going to see more carriers, ships in the region to support these U.S. goals?
A. We have the [George Washington Carriers Strike Group there. It’s not unusual for me to have a couple of strike groups operating in the region. GW is out and about, always, unless it is in a maintenance availability, and whatever West Coast deployer is out there generally we capture and, during its transits east [and] west, it conducts business for us while it’s in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. There is a requirement that I pretty much sustain for a carrier strike group in the region. It’s more than one. It’s not quite two right now on a daily basis just to maintain the level of exercise and work we have for them. I’ve enjoyed that pretty consistently even with the wars.
Q. Do you need more?
A. Hey, I’ll take six. When things are stable out there, and they are not always, … do I require two aircraft carriers on station at all times? Probably not. But I have to have a response capability, and I need a presence for the deterrent power that it has.
North Korea is not inconsequential in this whole discussion. They remain probably the most urgent threat or challenge that we face out there because of the unpredictability of the North Koreans, and carrier strike groups have assisted in the past in the deterrence efforts that we have exerted toward them. So they are a great value to us out there, both as a deterrent and as an exercise platform in the region and as a response platform.
Q. With China developing one aircraft carrier and planning soon for a second, what is the U.S. strategy?
A. I think it’s more of a visible symbol than a true capability as yet. It’ll take some years for them to develop a carrier air wing and carrier group construct that goes with it. We expect in typical Chinese fashion that they will attempt to generate a capability as soon as they possibly can, and they generally have done very well with that. They are underpinned by a strong economy and, as a consequence, their military has grown fat, so I don’t have any doubts that will see that carrier advance. They have expressed … an intention to build a couple more, so I do expect to see carrier construction ongoing during this decade. Allies and partners in the region don’t yet understand China’s intentions in having a power projection capability like an aircraft carrier and a strike group, so they are asking China the question. China doesn’t typically disclose those things. They are not particularly transparent about their capabilities at the tactical level, so they will likely maintain some level of [vagueness] in what they intend with these aircraft carriers. But it’s having an effect on the region, there’s no question.
We are not intending to impede their development. We are working very hard to engage China and bring whatever capabilities they have to bear in the region in a constructive way to contribute to the security in the region, not to challenge it.
Q. How do you calm nerves in Taiwan and Tokyo?
A. Our presence is one of those ways. The close association we have … with allies … and partners in the region and our continued posture and presence in the region are how you maintain assurance. So as we see power balance shifting as China develops a very consequential military, the continued U.S. presence becomes increasingly important to those partners in the region because it provides the counterbalance that we feel they need.
Q: So does this shift the U.S. strategy in Asia?
A. Strategy, no. Could it require reconsideration of how we are postured and present in Asia? It could, yes, depending on how things work out in terms of managing China’s rise. The posture and presence dimensions of this are constantly under my review. So that I represent back to the Pentagon and with the service chiefs to understand how many ships, how many Army divisions, how many Marine expeditionary groups and how many Air Force wings I require at any given time and where … in order to optimize our responsibilities in the region. Whenever I can’t achieve the kind of posture that I desire, then I am compelled to deploy and employ and sustain forces in the region to maintain presence, and we are committed to both…. There’s a North Korea dynamic in this that has caused us to consider the posture of ballistic missile defense ships and capabilities there, that has caused me to make changes over the past several years. So as we scope the region from the standpoint of the combat power and the challenges that we face, we are continually tinkering with adjusting the posture and presence to deal with it.
Q. Will we see more ballistic-missile defense ships in the Pacific?
A. I would say that if we see more ballistic missile threat, we will see more BMD ships. This becomes more a calculus of: Are we properly postured to face whatever challenges that we are facing out there and are present in the right places, on a day-to-day basis, to deal with it, both to be responsive and to have the capability on hand against the kind of response time lines that we feel they require.
Q. We’ve seen recent cases of alcohol-linked misconduct and sailor caught using spice. What are your concerns with how that affects the fleet and forces?
A. Of course it’s not just Navy…. Trends change, in terms of how they use legal drugs and alcohol. Things that are just more abusive in terms of alcohol is a concern, and that migrates into military activities, of course. So this is now [about] how aware are we of what is really occurring among the younger generation of Sailors, and Soldiers and Airmen and Marines?
When they are celebrating, do we know how they are using alcohol in those celebrations? I think it’s very important that senior leadership, that senior enlisted leadership, remain aware of what both the popular trends are and how that translates into use by our forces.
Q. Thousands of individual augmentees are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. What assurances that you can give them in a time of drawdown they are not going to pay a price when they come back to their parent command?
A. I was the vice chief of the Navy when we invented the individual augments to go in an help our Army and Marine Corps brethren out in combat support, combat service support areas, and it’s only broadened since then. We went through great pains to ensure that individual augments were rewarded for that experience. We felt that it was valuable in a joint-service environment to have that exposure to other services. We felt it was a sacrifice that they were making and that it should be a favorable consequent in future evaluations and selection boards and that sort of thing. So in the precepts of our board statutory boards, and in the way in which we are approaching the evaluations of these individuals, they are rewarded for this. If you’ve served successfully, it will enhance your career and not detract from it.
——————————————————————————————-
NightWatch
For the night of 3 November 2011
Japan-India: Indian Defense Minister A.K. Antony and Japanese Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa agreed to hold their first bilateral naval exercises in 2012, according to Japanese Defense Ministry officials.
Ichikawa said deepening bilateral defense ties between Tokyo and New Delhi will lead to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Antony said India’s relations with Japan remain a priority and New Delhi seeks to strengthen those ties. Both ministers discussed the importance of the international community in protecting sea lanes, specifically discussing the South China Sea.
Comment: For India, this is the next step in its “Look East” policy. Similar ties and exercises with the South Korean Navy also are likely. Eventually, the combined fleets of India, South Korea and Japan, supported by Taiwan and the US, will be arrayed against China in future conflicts. The Asian states do not perceive containment of China as primarily a US leadership task. That is an important lesson and manifests the success of a half century of US policy.
The Chinese, on the other hand, are reaping what they have sowed in the past twenty years by their aggressive assertiveness in northeast Asia, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. Chinese actions have nurtured an extraordinary and unprecedented regional reaction that is moving towards a new regional military cooperative structure, linking the fleets of the Asian democracies.
The most important features of this interlocking set of bilateral ties are that the Asian members are equals and the Asians are taking responsibility for Asian security affairs, without relying on the US Navy. US Navy connections with all the parties constitute a second tier of linkage that resides in background and gives the Asians depth and strength.
A third feature is that for the first time in a millennium and a half, the Asian navies are defying China and are actually much more capable than the Chinese navy, without relying on the forces of nature.
The worst thing that could happen is for the US to try to take charge or steer the development or do anything except enable it, behind the scenes. US estimates of Asian security threats that do not factor Asian capabilities that the US has nurtured are incomplete.
The NightWatch bias is that Asian nations know best how to solve Asian problems, with some US support as requested. The Asians will find a way.
End of NightWatch for 3 November.
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Pacom Article List:
________________________________
Andrew S. Erickson <http://www.andrewerickson.com/> <http://fusion.google.com/add?source=atgs&feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/AndrewErickson>
________________________________
* China’s Energy Security: The Perspective of Energy Users <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#1>
* China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent in 2020: Four Alternative Futures for China’s SSBN Fleet <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#2>
* Somali Piracy: Political Lessons for the Navy <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#3>
* Survivability of China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Forces <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#4>
* The Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to US Power in Asia <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#5>
* Are Sri Lanka’s Relations with China Deepening? An Analysis of Economic, Military, and Diplomatic Data <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#6>
* The Driving Forces behind China’s Naval Modernization <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#7>
* Tanker Ownership in Non-OECD Countries and the Rise of Government-Owned Fleets <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#8>
* Beijing’s South China Sea Debate <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#9>
* Perils of the Deep: The Dangers of Submarine Proliferation in the Seas of East Asia <https://mclmail.saic.com/exchange/weekss/Drafts/FW:%20Andrew%20S.%20Erickson.EML/1_text.htm#10>
China’s Energy Security: The Perspective of Energy Users <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/HtJlLscpiFo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 05:34 PM PDT
Malavika Jain Bambawale and Benjamin K. Sovacool, “China’s Energy Security: The Perspective of Energy Users <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261910005234#bb0055> ,” Applied Energy, 88.5 (May 2011): 1949-56.
Abstract
The article explores the energy security concerns faced by China from the point of view of energy users working in government, university, civil society and business sectors. The authors first derive a set of seven hypotheses related to Chinese energy security drawn from a review of the recent academic literature. We then explain each of these seven hypotheses, relating to (1) security of energy supply, (2) geopolitics, (3) climate change, (4) decentralization, (5) energy efficiency, (6) research and innovation of new energy technologies, and (7) self sufficiency and trade. Lastly, the article tests these hypotheses through a survey distributed in English and Mandarin completed by 312 Chinese participants. The conclusion presents insights for policymakers and energy scholars.
Keywords: China; Energy security; Security of supply
Article Outline
1. Introduction
2. Research methodology
3. Seven hypotheses about China’s energy security
3.1. H1: One would expect a country such as China to be predominantly concerned about the security of fossil fuel supply, given its rapid economic growth
3.2. H2: Energy trade is unlikely to be a key dimension of energy security, given that China has placed emphasis on self dependence and has a “going out” strategy to make investments and acquisitions abroad
3.3. H3: Although traditionally, China has focused on economic growth, one would expect that growing environmental concerns from national and international sources would make climate change a salient issue
3.4. H4: Decentralized systems would not be important for a country like China, because of its tradition of central planning and the centralized nature of its current energy decision making and execution
3.5. H5: Energy efficiency would be of high importance, especially among those working in the manufacturing sector, because China has the goal of increasing GDP without a substantial rise in energy consumption
3.6. H6: Renewable energy and R&D would be highly important for China’s policymakers, given China’s increasingly important status in the world as a renewable energy leader and the potential for renewable energy to solve its energy shortage
3.7. H7: One would expect a country such as China to place emphasis on military and geopolitical security given that its energy demand is likely to lead to conflicts of interest with other large energy consuming nations
4. Testing our seven hypotheses
4.1. H1: Security of supply
4.2. H2: Self sufficiency and trade
4.3. H3: Climate change
4.4. H4: Decentralized systems
4.5. H5: Energy efficiency
4.6. H6: Research and innovation
4.7. H7: Geopolitics
5. Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Supplementary material
References
1. Introduction
China’s growing importance as an energy consumer cannot be understated. Between 1990 and 2007 China’s economy grew fourfold, and its energy use more than doubled. This was of particular concern to Chinese planners because until 1993, China was self sufficient in its energy requirements. Only then did it become a net importer of oil, “ending three decades of self sufficiency.” In the past, relying on others such as Soviet Union for energy projects engendered negative experiences as the latter withdrew from all exploration projects in the middle of construction, giving rise to China’s fear of international collaboration. However, rapid Chinese economic growth has created a parallel demand for oil, necessitating imports from international oil markets and raising concerns about energy efficiency. Since then, China has undertaken several measures to reduce its energy dependency and improve its energy security. These have attracted attention from economists and politicians alike and given rise to speculation about potential geopolitical impacts. Much has been written about China’s energy security and energy policy, and how it would evolve in the next two decades. Views range from alarmist predictions about the potential clash of superpowers, to perspectives about better integration of Chinese power into the international community due to greater trade.
Does this emerging literature on Chinese energy security actually match the views of those residing and using energy in China? In this paper, our aim is to understand what Chinese energy users working in different sectors think about energy security. We undertook a survey amongst Chinese residents to understand what they believe are the key dimensions of energy security. We first arrived at a set of hypotheses about China’s energy security by reviewing the academic literature. We then tested these seven hypotheses through a survey of Chinese residents working within government, university, civil society and business sectors. The first section of this article highlights our research methodology. The second section summarizes the seven hypotheses emerging from the literature on energy security for China. The third section summarizes the results of the survey, and compares them to the hypotheses. We conclude by summarizing the findings and deriving insights for public policymakers and energy scholars. …
China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent in 2020: Four Alternative Futures for China’s SSBN Fleet <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/QjmU0zM6a14/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 05:22 PM PDT
Thomas M. Skypek, “China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent in 2020: Four Alternative Futures for China’s SSBN Fleet <http://csis.org/images/stories/poni/101015_2010_NSI_Collection_of_Papers.pdf> ,” in A Collection of Papers from the 2010 Nuclear Scholars Initiative (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2010).
This article addresses three major analytical questions: first, what are four alternative force structures for China’s nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) fleet in 2020? Second, what are the costs and benefits for each alternative future? Third, which force structure is Beijing mostly likely to adopt and why? This article hypothesizes that the future of China’s sea-based nuclear deterrent lies not with the much-heralded Type 094 Jin-class boats but with its follow-on, the nascent Type 096 SSBN. Once fully operational, China’s SSBN fleet will enhance China’s strategic strike portfolio and strengthen Beijing’s overall deterrence posture by providing enhanced range, mobility, stealth, survivability, penetration, and lethality. …
Somali Piracy: Political Lessons for the Navy <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/yoMJ61TLUTE/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 05:04 PM PDT
Martin N. Murphy, “Somali Piracy: Political Lessons for the Navy <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10803920.2011.550238> ,” American Foreign Policy Interests, 33.1 (2011): 17-25.
This article argues that the navies operating to suppress piracy off Somalia are operating in what is effectively a policy vacuum. So long as that vacuum persists, piracy may be restricted but not eliminated. The financial cost of the naval presence far outweighs what it costs the pirate gangs to mount attacks. There is no shortage of young Somali men willing to risk their lives at sea for what for them are vast rewards. The United States Navy is the final guarantor of global maritime security. Allowing the pirates to continue will diminish that guarantee. The effect will be to encourage, or force, other nations to strengthen their navies, which could challenge the U.S. Navy’s position across a broader range of capabilities than merely those of maritime security. The price is too high to pay. Pirate success is predicated on cooperation with Somali clan structure and clan elders. It will begin to be eradicated once the United States and its international partners are prepared to work through the same channels. The acceptance of this lesson, albeit tentative, needs to be encouraged within the United States. America’s partners need to accept that lesson also. All international parties need to recognize that the naval effort will work only in conjunction with a policy that strikes a hardheaded bargain with political forces within Somalia that trade political legitimacy and economic assistance for clear progress toward political stability, reduced corruption, and piracy elimination. …
Survivability of China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Forces <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/5XQAfNvf_Io/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 04:59 PM PDT
Wu Riqiang, “Survivability of China’s Sea-Based Nuclear Forces <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08929882.2011.586312> ,” Science & Global Security, 19.2 (2011): 91-120.
The survivability of China’s ballistic missile submarines and submarine-launched ballistic missiles is examined. First, the Type 094 ballistic missile submarine is noisy and vulnerable even in shallow waters. This suggests the urgency for China to improve the quietness of the Type 094. Second, after the deployment of the U.S. interceptor missile, SM-3 Block IIA, in 2018, China’s intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles launched from Chinese coastal waters would face a three-layer engagement, constructed by SM-3 IIAs deployed near China’s coastal waters, ground-based interceptors deployed in California and Alaska, and SM-3 IIAs deployed near U.S. coastal waters respectively. These deployments could undermine the credibility of China’s nuclear deterrence. It would be well for China and the United States to work together to improve strategic stability between these two states. …
The Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to US Power in Asia <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/ufhYd7LfpXc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 04:50 PM PDT
John J. Mearsheimer, “The Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to US Power in Asia <http://cjip.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/4/381.full.pdf+html> ,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 3 (2010): 381–96.
The United States has been the most powerful state on the planet for many decades and has deployed robust military forces in the Asia-Pacific region since the early years of the Second World War. The American presence has had significant consequences for Australia and for the wider region. This is how the Australian government sees it, at least according to the 2009
Defence White Paper: ‘Australia has been a very secure country for many decades, in large measure because the wider Asia-Pacific region has enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace and stability underwritten by US strategic primacy’. The United States, in other words, has acted as a pacifier in this part of the world.
However, according to the very next sentence in the White Paper, ‘That order is being transformed as economic changes start to bring about changes in the distribution of strategic power’. The argument here, of course, is that the rise of China is having a significant effect on the global balance of power. In particular, the power gap between China and the United States is shrinking and in all likelihood ‘US strategic primacy’ in this region will be no more. This is not to say that the United States will disappear; in fact, its presence is likely to grow in response to China’s rise. But the United States will no longer be the preponderant power in the Asia-Pacific region, as it has been since 1945.
The most important question that flows from this discussion is whether China can rise peacefully. It is clear from the Defence White Paper—which is tasked with assessing Australia’s strategic situation out to the year 2030—that policymakers in Canberra are worried about the changing balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region. Consider these comments from that document: ‘As other powers rise, and the primacy of the United States is increasingly tested, power relations will inevitably change. When this happens there will be the possibility of miscalculation. There is a small but still concerning possibility of growing confrontation between some of these powers’. At another point in the White Paper, we read that, ‘Risks resulting from escalating strategic competition could emerge quite unpredictably, and is a factor to be considered in our defence planning’. In short, the Australian government seems to sense that the shifting balance of power between China and the United States may not be good for peace in the neighborhood.
Australians should be worried about China’s rise because it is likely to lead to an intense security competition between China and the United States, with considerable potential for war. Moreover, most of China’s neighbors, to include India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Russia, Vietnam—and Australia—will join with the United States to contain China’s power. To put it bluntly: China cannot rise peacefully.
It is important to emphasize, however, that I am not arguing that Chinese behavior alone will drive the security competition that lies ahead. The United States is also likely to behave in aggressive ways, thus further increasing the prospects for trouble in the Asia-Pacific region.
Naturally, not everyone will agree with my assessment of the situation. Many believe that China can rise peacefully, that it is not inevitable that the United States and a powerful China will have confrontational relations. Of course, they assume that China will have peaceful intentions, and that welcome fact of life can help facilitate stability in this region, even though the underlying balance of power is expected to change dramatically. …
Are Sri Lanka’s Relations with China Deepening? An Analysis of Economic, Military, and Diplomatic Data <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/7zTS23Sux7w/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 04:40 PM PDT
Nilanthi Samaranayake, “Are Sri Lanka’s Relations with China Deepening? An Analysis of Economic, Military, and Diplomatic Data <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14799855.2011.581603> ,” Asian Security, 7.2 (2011): 119-46.
During the past few years, Sri Lanka appears to have forged closer relations with China. Sri Lanka welcomed Chinese investment in building a port in Hambantota, arms from China for use in its civil war, and “dialogue partner” status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Such high-profile moves have unnerved analysts fearing the rise of Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean region. A first-time, systematic analysis of the trends in Sri Lanka’s economic, military, and diplomatic relations with China reveals that ties have indeed been strengthening. However, Sri Lanka is neither bandwagoning with nor balancing China, as structural realism predicts. More attention should be devoted to explaining the security thinking of small states that are not following such predictions in response to the emergence of a regional hegemon. …
The Driving Forces behind China’s Naval Modernization <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/osyRUTmPAA4/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 04:32 PM PDT
Yves-Heng Lim, “The Driving Forces behind China’s Naval Modernization <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01495933.2011.561729> ,” Comparative Strategy, 30:2 (2011): 105-20.
The rapid development of Chinese naval forces over the last decade has provoked much debate over where this modernization is headed. Observing the decennial evolution of Chinese naval forces, this article questions assumptions that China’s naval modernization can be mainly explained by the enduring salience of the Taiwan question or by a “Mahanian” impulse. In the last ten years, China has prioritized the development of its submarine fleet and its sea-denial capacity, a choice that can be explained essentially by Beijing’s position in the East Asian regional system and the disquieting presence of an adversarial global power.
Introduction
Among the most salient elements that belie hopes that China could become a satisfied shareholder in the current world order, the rapid modernization of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) stands out as a particularly disquieting trend. On the bright side of nontraditional security, China made use of its newly-acquired platforms in a way that provoked praise rather than fears as it took part in international operations against piracy in East African waters in 2009. However, recurrent incidents such as the intimidating dispatch of warships to support Chinese claims in the East China Sea against Japan or the harassment of a U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ship in the vicinity of Hainan continue to cast a threatening shadow over how China intends to use its naval forces in a more or less distant future.
There are multiple specific contingencies in which naval forces could serve Beijing’s interests, but some have attracted more attention than others. More precisely, China’s renewed interest for the development of modern naval forces has been typically linked to the need for Beijing to have the means of its ambitions to resolve the Taiwan problem, respond to the increasing dependence of China upon its seaborne trade and vulnerable maritime lines of communications, and turn a more or less extended sea zone into some kind of buffer. In more theoretical words, the causes of Chinese naval modernization have been traced to the need to gain command of the sea so as to exploit it for power-projection purposes or maritime trade protection, as well as to the need to deny command of the sea to some potential or actual adversary.
Assessing the relative strength of each of the three driving forces of Chinese naval modernization, which parallel the three classical dimensions of sea power, is made possible by the particular connection among these dimensions of sea power, and by the fact that naval platforms, though somewhat versatile, are more useful to fulfill some tasks rather than others. By definition, the ability to deny command to one’s adversary is a prerequisite for gaining command for one’s self, while the ability to secure command is, as a general rule, a prerequisite for being able to project forces from the sea onto the land. A very obvious distinction is thus possible among navies that can fulfill the “minimum” task of sea denial, those that can gain command of the sea to guarantee the security of their lines of communications, and those that can make of use this command for sea-based power projection. In a more dynamic perspective, this implies that navy modernization driven by an urgent need to project power is not likely to be similar to the modernization of a navy whose primary aim is to reinforce its sea-denial capability against a stronger naval power. These differences are, of course, likely to be visible at the doctrinal level, but they are also likely to be particularly evident in the choices a state makes about the deployment of some platforms rather than others.
To go back to the peculiar case of contemporary China, the trebling, in real terms, of Chinese military expenditures over the last ten years and the reassessment of equilibriums in a way favorable to the PLAN, has allowed an overall improvement of naval forces. In this process, however, there has been unevenness in the progress made by the PLAN, which is reflected in the type of platforms developed and deployed and tends to indicate that naval modernization is propelled by three driving forces, each of which is pursued with different intensities. An observation of the decennial trend in China’s naval modernization shows that the PLAN has made very moderate progress in its capacity to project power from the sea, while efforts to protect sea lines of communication, though much more significant, seem to have been continuously trumped by the more urgent task to create a maritime buffer zone through the accelerated development of a reliable sea-denial capacity. …
Tanker Ownership in Non-OECD Countries and the Rise of Government-Owned Fleets <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/zqaabTdPDEY/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 04:20 PM PDT
Al Wood, “Tanker Ownership in Non-OECD Countries and the Rise of Government-Owned Fleets <http://elliott.gwu.edu/~iiep/assets/docs/papers/Wood_IIEPWP2011-07.pdf> ,” Institute for International Economic Policy Working Paper Series, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, August 2011.
Abstract: This paper provides an historical perspective of the global oil-tanker market, the international tanker fleet, and the major trends in tanker ownership. The available data indicate that outside the OECD, more than half of large tanker capacity is ultimately owned by governments compared to less than one percent within the OECD. A positive correlation is identified between oil imports and tanker ownership at the national level, but only for non-OECD countries. This result suggests that the forecasted increases in oil imports and exports by emerging economies over the next two decades are likely to result in higher levels of government ownership of the international oil tanker fleet.
Introduction
Oil tankers constitute roughly one third of the world’s vessels in volume terms and about the same share of all seaborne trade. In 2009 80 million barrels of crude oil were produced each day and 53 million of those barrels were traded internationally with two thirds of the traded barrels transported on oil tankers. Much of that oil is transported on tankers a second time as petroleum products, such as gasoline and diesel. For the U.S. and other oil importing countries, oil tankers are a key link in the oil supply chain. For oil exporting countries, oil tankers connect them to international markets that monetize their valuable resource.
Most studies of oil tanker ownership have focused on the “registered” owners of tankers, which are the companies that legally own the tankers. But the vast majority of registered owners are subsidiaries of larger companies that maintain ultimate control of the vessels. Therefore, unless otherwise noted, this analysis will focus on the ultimate owner of each tanker, which is also known as the “beneficial” or “group” owner.
Before analyzing the available data on tanker ownership at the national level, this paper briefly explains the market for tanker services (chapter three) and provides some history of the international tanker fleet (chapter four). Chapter five explores the ownership of the current tanker fleet by the type of owner, while chapter six explores the impact of changing liability laws. Chapter seven considers ownership trends by the nationality of the ultimate owner of the tanker. Chapter eight considers the growth in of the ownership by governments of tankers, while chapter nine offers some concluding remarks with regard to US energy security. …
Beijing’s South China Sea Debate <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/7GVuV_R9uuA/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 03:50 PM PDT
Sarah Raine, “Beijing’s South China Sea Debate <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00396338.2011.621633> ,” Survival, 53:5 (2011): 69-88.
The three million square kilometres of the South China Sea are of particular strategic importance. Sovereignty over a plethora of small islands, atolls, rocks and coral reefs, including the two main island groupings of the Spratlys and the Paracels, is contested through overlapping claims by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. While China has, over the past two decades, made impressive overall progress towards improving relations with its Southeast Asian neighbours, mounting tensions over these competing claims threaten to undermine its charm offensive. Following the aggressive manoeuvres by five Chinese vessels against the US ocean surveillance ship USNS Impeccable in March 2009 in the South China Sea, developments in those waters have attracted greater diplomatic and press attention. Many observers see China’s behaviour in the South China Sea as symptomatic of an increasingly ‘assertive’ diplomacy. And despite the common interest of the littoral states of Southeast and East Asia in the security, stability and free transit of maritime commerce through the South China Sea, in practice they differ significantly over how these interests should be best protected, and by whom.
The sovereignty disputes are about more than simply who owns particular features. They involve major themes of grand strategy and territorial defence, including the protection of sea lines of communication, energy, food and environmental security. They may also be linked to rising populist nationalism. The stakes are too high for imminent resolution; the rulers of states with maritime territorial claims in the South China Sea are convinced that compromise is not in their national interest. Rather, they (along with states without claims and non-state actors, such as energy companies) focus not so much on dispute resolution as on dispute management, with the aim of preventing conflict and preserving freedom of navigation and over-flight.
The states with claims have belatedly recognised that the disputes are not being managed effectively. The non-binding Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, signed in November 2002 by China and the 10 ASEAN member states, committed parties to work towards adopting a legally binding code of conduct whilst exercising ‘self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes’. But while there has been no further occupation of disputed territory since the declaration was signed, the theoretical commitment to self-restraint has not put an end to unannounced and potentially provocative reinforcement of already occupied islands. While diplomats on all sides made increasingly vacuous reiterations of fealty to the weakening 2002 declaration, several states undertook unilateral military, bureaucratic and jurisdictional initiatives in the South China Sea, with the aim of changing the political and military dynamics of the disputed claims. China’s initiatives have been particularly prominent. China and ASEAN signed the Implementation Guidelines for the declaration in Bali in July 2011 as a step (albeit a small one) towards agreeing the code of conduct the declaration had promised. The guidelines, however, do little to bolster the effectiveness of the declaration, which remains non-binding.
Following the Impeccable incident, and against the backdrop of American concern over the nature of China’s military build-up, Washington has been paying increased attention to developments in the South China Sea. Though careful to reiterate its neutrality regarding sovereignty disputes, the United States has more assertively highlighted its interest in protecting the free transit of vessels, both commercial and military. Such passage is vital for America’s self-ascribed position as a resident power in Asia, for the credibility of its regional security umbrella, and for its ability to monitor Chinese military developments. Indeed, the US desire to retain this ability to monitor Chinese military advancements, including the developing Chinese naval base on Hainan, and the Chinese rejection of this right, is a major factor behind the rising tensions. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2009, the commander of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Timothy Keating, argued that the Impeccable incident was a ‘troubling indicator that China, particularly in the South China Sea, is behaving in an aggressive and troublesome manner, and they’re not willing to abide by acceptable standards of behaviour or rules of the road’. In July 2009, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held hearings on ‘Maritime disputes and sovereignty issues in East Asia’ to monitor how these were impacting on the region and US interests there. In January 2010, the new commander of the Pacific Command, Admiral Robert F. Willard, highlighted to Congress how Chinese naval patrols in the South China Sea had shown an ‘increased willingness to confront regional nations on the high seas and within the contested island chains’. In February, the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission held an all-day hearing on China’s activities in Southeast Asia, with experts testifying about China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea and advising that the United States needed to engage more with the region to protect its interests, including taking a more active interest in dispute management. Attention to and concern over China’s activities in these waters continued to grow through 2010. At the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi in July 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the strongest and most direct public statement of US engagement on the issue to date, declaring that the United States had a ‘national interest’ in ‘open access to Asia’s maritime commons and respect for international law in the South China Sea’. Calling for a ‘collaborative diplomatic process’, she highlighted US opposition to ‘the use or threat of force by any claimant’, a remark aimed primarily at China. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, present at the meeting, was clearly unhappy, making it plain in his response that Beijing strongly opposed any effort to ‘internationalise’ the issue. …
Perils of the Deep: The Dangers of Submarine Proliferation in the Seas of East Asia <http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AndrewErickson/~3/T-ro51LOrV4/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email>
Posted: 28 Oct 2011 03:24 PM PDT
Sam Bateman, “Perils of the Deep: The Dangers of Submarine Proliferation in the Seas of East Asia <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14799855.2011.548213#preview> ,” Asian Security, 7.1 (2011) <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14799855.2011.548213> .
Greater numbers of submarines are being acquired in the Asia-Pacific. This development poses challenges in the region for preventive diplomacy, maritime confidence building, and ensuring the safety of submarine operations. However, countries are extremely sensitive about submarine operations and meeting these challenges will be difficult. The article discusses technological developments with submarines and antisubmarine warfare and the implications for regional naval operations. It identifies the risks associated with increased numbers of submarines, particularly in the narrow seas of East Asia, and recommends measures that might mitigate the adverse consequences of submarine proliferation, including enhancing submarine safety. It concludes that there is a pressing need to start discussion of these measures in regional forums. …
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November 2, 2011
Chinese Navy Brings Medical Aid To Jamaica
By David McFadden, Associated Press
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Dozens of doctors and nurses fanned out from a Chinese navy hospital ship Tuesday to treat poor Jamaicans as part of a global humanitarian mission to portray China’s rapidly growing military as a responsible power.
The People’s Liberation Army’s 584-foot-long Peace Ark carries more than 100 medical volunteers who provide free surgery, CAT scans, eye care and other procedures.
The floating hospital was launched three years ago and is making its second foreign trip, the Chinese Embassy said. It is on a roughly 100-day journey around the Caribbean, where the United States is the largest investment source and military partner.
The aim of the operation, dubbed “Harmonious Mission,” is to soften the image of China’s 2.3 million-member military and boost its ties with other nations’ armed forces.
“It’s trying to use military powers in ways that are reassuring and not threatening,” said David M. Lampton, director of the China studies program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “The Chinese have a strategy of simultaneously growing their hard power but using it in a soft way that’s reassuring and therefore doesn’t build a coalition of enemies against it.”
The Peace Ark has already visited Cuba and after Jamaica is scheduled to go to Trinidad and Tobago.
Chinese navy Lt. Cmdr. Chen Yong Peng, leader of a team working at a clinic in the Jamaican capital of Kingston, said the mission allows military personnel to build relationships with regional authorities and has nothing to do with countering U.S. influence.
“Our team of medical staff is doing all kinds of surgeries and operations, nearly everything except organ transplants,” he said through a navy translator. “China has had a long history of relations with Jamaica and other places in the Caribbean.”
Hundreds of Jamaicans lined up for hours beneath a blazing sun outside the clinic in Kingston’s gritty Olympic Gardens area. The crowd of women and a few children and men struggled to keep their places in line.
“My eyes are getting worse and I’m hoping to get some glasses. I’ve been told to get glasses for five years but I just can’t afford them,” said 48-year-old Pearlene Campbell, who arrived at the clinic before dawn. “I hope these people can help me.”
Doctor diplomacy has long been practiced in Latin America, most notably by Cuba’s communist government, which each year sends thousands of doctors to provide free care in poor countries in the region. Venezuela also finances many of these missions.
Earlier this year, an 894-foot U.S. Navy hospital ship brought state-of-the-art medical care to Jamaica as part of a five-month goodwill mission to nine countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.
The Chinese military took its first big stab at overseas disaster relief last year, sending helicopters to help after floods in Pakistan. Last month, the Chinese air force flew 7,000 tents to Pakistan after more flooding and it is shipping aid to flooded areas of Thailand. China also has become the biggest contributor of manpower to U.N. peacekeeping missions.
The U.S. has been generally supportive of the Chinese military’s new humanitarian drive, saying that boosts transparency and chances for peaceful interactions.
But Lampton, the Johns Hopkins analyst, said the Chinese military’s goodwill missions may cause Washington anxiety in the future. “China’s navy and soon air force will be moving further and further into the global commons, which has traditionally been dominated by the U.S.,” he said.
China is also busily ramping up investment in the Caribbean and Latin America.
In September, a Chinese delegation toured the Caribbean announcing various grants and loans up to $1 billion to bolster its economic relationships in the region.
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Subject: CSIS Critical Questions: U.S.-ROK Free Trade Agreement by Victor Cha
The U.S.-ROK Free Trade Agreement
Victor D. Cha
October 13, 2011
On October 12, the U.S. Congress approved free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. The House passed the Korea trade deal (KORUS) in a 278 to 151 vote. In the Senate, KORUS passed with 83 in favor and only 15 opposed.
Q1: What is the significance of the agreement for the United States?
A1: The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement or KORUS FTA is the largest bilateral free trade agreement negotiated by the United States and the largest U.S. trade agreement since conclusion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The agreement will increase U.S. exports to Korea by $11 billion and increase U.S. GDP by $12 billion. According to experts, the KORUS FTA will help to support 70,000 American jobs.
Q2: Why did the agreement take so long to pass?
A2: KORUS was originally concluded during the George W. Bush administration on June 30, 2007. The agreement was not put forward to the Congress during the Bush administration, however. Subsequently-and reversing his earlier opposition-President Obama highlighted the three pending FTAs as an opportunity to create American jobs and strengthen trade relations with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia in his January 2010 State of the Union address. In the United States, KORUS stalled as legislators demanded additional conditions for the automobile and beef sectors and for organized labor. In June 2010, the Obama administration announced its intention to revisit the text negotiated with South Korea by the Bush administration. However, negotiators failed to reach an agreement before the November 2010 G-20 Seoul summit. The United States and South Korea finally agreed on a renegotiated text, signed on December 3, 2010. The United States and South Korea exchanged legal texts on February 10, 2011. However, the agreement was further delayed as congressional Republicans tied its passage to movement on the Colombia and Panama FTAs and as the Obama administration asked for an agreement on extending a program known as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA).
Q3: Has the agreement been ratified in Korea?
A3: Not yet. The agreement has gone through committee, but the National Assembly has not yet approved it. Congressional passage of KORUS will compel the Korean legislature to move quickly. The ruling party in Korea currently holds a majority in the legislature.
Q4: What is the broader meaning of the agreement?
A4: KORUS is a prototypical, high-quality free trade agreement. When it was originally negotiated in 2007, many countries appreciated the innovative efforts made to create a deep and strong agreement that cut tariffs across sectors between two large economies. KORUS will provide impetus to a multilateral trade negotiation known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), involving the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. The Obama administration’s objective is to ink a framework agreement for TPP by the November 2011 APEC meetings in Honolulu. If successful, KORUS and TPP would constitute substantive and critical steps to eventual formation of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).
Q5: Does the agreement have strategic (not just economic) value?
A5: Absolutely. KORUS takes the U.S.-ROK alliance relationship to the next level, integrating the two countries and people not only on security issues through the half-century military alliance, but now across a much wider scope. Broadly, it sends an important message to Asia that the United States, despite its current economic woes, is not moving toward protectionism. U.S. support of free trade in Asia has historically been a key pillar of U.S. leadership in the region.
Victor D. Cha holds the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
(c) 2011 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.
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The Top 10 Unicorns of China Policy
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/03/the_top_ten_unicorns_of_china_policy
BY DANIEL BLUMENTHAL | OCTOBER 3, 2011
Unicorns are beautiful, make-believe creatures. But despite overwhelming
evidence of their fantastical nature, many people still believe in them.
Much of America’s China policy is also underpinned by belief in the
fantastical: in this case, soothing but logically inconsistent ideas.
But unlike with unicorns, the United States’ China-policy excursions
into the realm of make-believe could be dangerous. Crafting a better
China policy requires us to identify what is imaginary in U.S. thinking
about China. Author James Mann captures some in his book, The China
Fantasy
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O76N8W/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=
fopo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B000O76N8W
.
Here are my own top 10 China-policy unicorns:
1. The self-fulfilling prophecy. This is the argument that has the most
purchase over the United States’ China policy. Treat China like an
enemy, the belief goes, and it will become an enemy. Conversely, treat
China like a friend, and it will become a friend. But three decades of
U.S.-China relations should at least cast doubt on this belief. Since
the normalization of relations with China, the aim of U.S. policy has
been to bring China “into the family of nations.” Other than China
itself, no nation has done more than the United States to improve the
lot of the Chinese people and welcome China’s rise peacefully. And,
rather than increase its deterrence of China — a natural move given the
uncertainty attendant to the rise of any great power — the United
States has let its Pacific forces erode and will do so further. The
United States may soon go through its third round of defense cuts in as
many years. Here is just one example of how unserious the United States
is about China: As China continues to build up its strategic forces, the
United States has signed a deal with Russia to cap its strategic forces
without so much as mentioning China. Unless Beijing was insulted by this
neglect, surely it could take great comfort in an anachronistic U.S.
focus on arms control with Russia. But despite U.S. demonstrations of
benevolence, China still views the United States as its enemy or, on
better days, its rival. Its military programs are designed to fight the
United States. The self-fulfilling prophecy is far and away the most
fantastical claim about China policy and thus the No. 1 unicorn.
2. Abandoning Taiwan will remove the biggest obstacle to Sino-American
relations. Since 2003, when President George W. Bush publicly chided
then-Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian on the White House lawn with
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at his side, the United States has been
gradually severing its close links with Taiwan. President Barack Obama’s
Taiwan policy has been the logical denouement. Arms sales have been
stalled, no cabinet members have visited Taiwan since Bill Clinton’s
administration, and trade talks are nonexistent. There is essentially
nothing on the U.S.-Taiwan policy agenda. The reaction from China?
Indeed, it has moved on. But rather than bask in the recent warming of
its relationship with Taiwan, China has picked fights with Vietnam, the
Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and India. It does not matter what
“obstacles” the United States removes; China’s foreign policy has its
own internal logic that is hard for the United States to “shape.”
Abandoning Taiwan for the sake of better relations is yet another
dangerous fantasy.
3. China will inevitably overtake America, and America must manage its
decline elegantly. This is a new China-policy unicorn. Until a few years
ago, most analysts were certain there was no need to worry about China.
The new intellectual fad tells us there is nothing we can do about
China. Its rise and America’s decline are inevitable. But inevitability
in international affairs should remain the preserve of rigid ideological
theorists who still cannot explain why a unified Europe has not posed a
problem for the United States, why postwar Japan never really challenged
U.S. primacy, or why the rising United States and the declining Britain
have not gone to war since 1812. The fact is, China has tremendous,
seemingly insurmountable problems. It has badly misallocated its capital
thanks to a distorted financial system characterized by capital controls
and a non-market based currency. It may have a debt-to-GDP ratio as high
as 80 percent, thanks again to a badly distorted economy. And it has
created a demographic nightmare with a shrinking productive population,
a senior tsunami, and millions of males who will be unmarriageable (see
the pioneering work
<blockedhttp://cgd.swissre.com/library/Demographic_risks_to_China.html>
of my colleague Nick Eberstadt).
The United States also has big problems. But Americans are debating them
vigorously, know what they are, and are now looking to elect the leaders
to fix them. China’s political structure does not yet allow for fixing
big problems.
4 (related to 3). China is America’s banker. America cannot anger its
banker. In fact, China is more like a depositor. It deposits money in
U.S. Treasurys because its economy does not allow investors to put money
elsewhere. There is nothing else it can do with its surpluses unless it
changes its financial system radically (see above). It makes a pittance
on its deposits. If the United States starts to bring down its debts and
deficits, China will have even fewer options. China is desperate for
U.S. investment, U.S. Treasurys, and the U.S. market. The balance of
leverage leans toward the United States.
5. America is engaging China. This is a surprising policy unicorn. After
all, the United States does have an engagement policy with China. But it
is only engaging a small slice of China: the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP). The party may be large — the largest in the world (it could have
some 70 million members). The United States does need to engage party
leaders on matters of high politics and high finance, but China has at
least 1 billion other people. Many are decidedly not part of the CCP.
They are lawyers, activists, religious leaders, artists, intellectuals,
and entrepreneurs. Most would rather the CCP go quietly into the night.
America does not engage them. U.S. presidents tend to avoid making their
Chinese counterparts uncomfortable by insisting on speaking to a real
cross-section of Chinese society. Engagement seen through the prism of
government-to-government relations keeps the United States from engaging
with the broader Chinese public. Chinese officials come to the United
States and meet with whomever they want (usually in carefully controlled
settings and often with groups that are critical of the U.S. government
and very friendly to the Chinese government). U.S. leaders are far more
cautious in choosing with whom to meet in China. The United States does
not demand reciprocity in meeting with real civil society — underground
church leaders, political reformers, and so on. China has a successful
engagement policy. America does not.
6. America’s greatest challenge is managing China’s rise. Actually,
America’s greatest challenge will probably be managing China’s long
decline. Unless it enacts substantial reforms, China’s growth model may
sputter out soon. There is little if nothing it can do about its
demographic disaster (will it enact a pro-immigration policy?). And its
political system is too risk averse and calcified to make any real
reforms.
7. China’s decline will make our lives easier. China’s decline may make
the challenge for the United States more difficult for at least a
generation. It could play out for a long time, even as China grows more
aggressive with more lethal weaponry (e.g., what to do with surplus
males?). Arguably, both Germany and imperial Japan declined beginning
after World War I and continuing through the disaster of World War II.
Russia is in decline by all useful metrics. Even so, it invaded a
neighbor not too long ago. A declining, nuclear-armed nation with a
powerful military can be more problematic than a rising, confident
nation.
8. America needs to extricate itself from the “distractions” of the
Middle East and South Asia to focus on China. This is a very popular
unicorn among the cognoscenti. But how would this work? As Middle
Easterners go through a historic revolution that could lead to the
flowering of democracy or the turmoil of more extremism, how does
America turn its attention elsewhere? Is it supposed to leave
Afghanistan to the not-so-tender mercies of the Taliban and Pakistani
intelligence? This view is particularly ironic given China’s increased
interests in the Middle East and the U.S. need for a partnership with
India to deal with China. The United States has no way of creating the
kind of order it wishes to see in Asia without exerting a great amount
of influence over the oil-producing states in the Middle East and by
allowing India to become tied down in a struggle in South Asia. America
is the sole superpower; its foreign policy is interconnected. “Getting
Asia right” means “getting the Middle East and South Asia right.”
9. America needs China’s help to solve global problems. This is further
down on my list because it is not really a fantastical unicorn. It is
true. What is a fantasy is that China will be helpful. The United States
does need China to disarm North Korea. It does not want to, and North
Korea is now a nuclear power. The same may soon be true with Iran. The
best the United States can get in its diplomacy with China is to stop
Beijing from being less helpful. It is a fact that global problems would
be easier to manage with Chinese help. However, China actually
contributing to global order is a unicorn.
10. Conflict with China is inevitable. A fair reading of the nine
“unicorns” above may lead to the conclusion that America is destined to
go to war with China. It may be a fair reading, but it is also an
inaccurate one. Sino-American relations will be determined by two main
drivers — one the United States can control, one it cannot. The first
is the U.S. ability to deter aggressive Chinese behavior. The second is
how politics develop in China. The strategic prize for Washington is
democratic reform in China. Democracy will not solve all Sino-American
problems. China may be very prickly about sovereignty and very
nationalistic. But a true liberal democracy in China in which people are
fairly represented is the best hope for peace. The disenfranchised could
force their government to focus resources on their manifold problems
(corruption, misallocated resources, lack of a social safety net). The
United States and the rest of Asia will certainly trust an open,
transparent China more, and ties would blossom at the level of civil
society. Historically, the United States has almost always been on
China’s side. It is waiting patiently to do so again.
Daniel Blumenthal is a current commissioner and former vice chairman of
the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He writes for
Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government <http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/>
blog.
Why China Will Not Become the Next Global Power… But It Could
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Washington D.C.
Dr. Edward N. Luttwak, is a world-renowned strategist and historian, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a government contractor, and the Chairman of the Board of AP Fleet. Luttwak has served as a consultant to the U.S. National Security Council, the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Armed Forces, and to various allied governments. He has lectured at universities and military colleges and has testified before congressional committees and presidential commissions. Luttwak is the author of, among numerous others, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, and Coup d’etat.
Paradox
Each country and historical period is different at invalidating most analogies, but the paradoxical logic of strategy is always the same — hence the identical prescriptions of Carl von Clausewitz and Sūnzǐ 孫子, greatly separated though they were by time, distance and cultural context. Under this logic, because of the increased resistance evoked by its rising power China could even become weaker at the level of grand strategy because of its own rising strength, a truly paradoxical outcome. That result could at least be moderated if not undone, if China’s rising strength were offset by increasingly conciliatory and unassertive foreign policies. The paradoxical logic thus runs counter to common sense and ordinary human instincts, because there is nothing natural about becoming more humble because one’s power is increasing. Nor is it at all natural to de-militarize, because with rising wealth military growth becomes easier. Hence the paradoxical and unnatural logic of strategy is more often ignored than obeyed — and that is one large reason why history is to such a large extent the record of the crimes and follies of mankind.
Until 2008, however, the external conduct of the People’s Republic of China largely conformed to the “unnatural” rules of the paradoxical logic, as it has been shown in precise detail in the case of territorial disputes[i]. In the years 1960-1965, border treaties were signed with Burma, Nepal, North Korea, Mongolia, and Afghanistan, after the Chinese side conceded 82%, 94%, 60% 65% and 100% respectively of the disputed areas. In 1998, when China was in a far better condition, it conceded 76% of the disputed area to conclude a treaty with Laos, and 50% in a treaty with Vietnam. Boundary agreements were also signed with Kazakhstan in 1994 (with 66% conceded) Kyrgyzstan in 1996 (68%), Vietnam in 1999 (50%) and Tajikistan in 1999 (96%).
It was almost as if China’s readiness to compromise increased with its relative power. By contrast, at sea where China is less favored than on land, the disputes over the Paracels and Spratlys remain unresolved till this day. With India, rival claims were not settled either, but agreements were signed in 1993 and 1996 to set aside those differences to pursue cooperation in other spheres; tacitly, the same was true of the maritime dispute with Japan, in line with China’s overall “Peaceful Rise” 中国和平崛起 grand strategy[ii] (later relabeled with the more emollient “Peaceful Development” 中国和平发展) whose obvious aim was to dissuade resistance, and any coalescence of adversaries.
From 2008, however, there was a drastic change. Perhaps it was caused by the abrupt elevation of China’s relative standing in the world caused by the Western economic crisis, which seemingly validated Chinese practices (The “Beijing Consensus”) while badly eroding the prestige of Western-style Democratic Capitalism. Or perhaps the cause or causes were more complicated than a simple outbreak of hubris, but in any case the consequences were not complicated at all: confident assertions, ironical dismissals, and sharp warnings became more common in the language of Chinese officials commenting on international issues, with much talk of China’s shift from reaction to action, from “rule taking” to “rule-making”. Most publicly, when top Foreign Ministry officials addressed unofficial international conferences, arrogant condescension or outright triumphalism increasingly became their prevalent tone.
More important, China’s long-dormant territorial disputes with India and Japan, were abruptly revived, in addition to the already active maritime disputes with Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam above all. On territorial questions, Chinese diplomacy definitely became more active, and in the case of Japan there was even a dramatic incident at sea that ended with Japan’s humiliating retreat–whose effects on Japanese opinion were magnified by the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s subsequent demand for an apology and compensation. It is as if, contrary to all historical experience, it was believed that such conduct would have no lasting consequences that such incidents would simply be forgotten, and that strong-arm tactics one day could be followed by a nice summit meeting on the next that would expunge their effects. That is delusional.
As for the historical and legal rights and wrongs of these quarrels, they are of course entirely irrelevant in this context. Only the strategic outcome matters: as of now, January 2011, wide segments of public opinion in the countries at the other end of each of these disputes no longer view China’s rise with equanimity but instead with concern, anxiety or even alarm. The governments of India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam are more watchful than before, more focused on security rather than trade and some, howsoever tentatively, are beginning to coalesce against China.
That India, Japan and Vietnam in combination exceed China in total population, total economic capacity, and total technological advancement is not strategically significant in itself because nothing resembling a triple alliance is in sight, nor is it politically plausible.
But then again, no such alliance is necessary. Not coincidentally, each of the three countries has improved its own relations with the United States of late, and the one American talent that cannot be gainsaid is in the careful construction, patient maintenance, and gentle leadership of multi-lateral alliances year after year, decade after decade. The North Atlantic Alliance (b. 1949) is certainly the longest-lived multi-lateral alliance in history, and is served operationally by a standing military command organization (NATO). No similar Asian organization is likely to emerge, nor indeed any kind of formal multi-lateral alliance, but again neither is needed or even desirable. Purely bilateral arrangements would be perfectly sufficient, and would allow others to join in, starting with South Korea.
Moreover, unlike the British who had to make important colonial concessions to construct their 1904 “Entente Cordiale” alliance with France, the United States would not have to sacrifice anything to effortlessly assume the informal leadership of an eventual (and of course wholly undeclared) anti-China coalition, in which its historic “Anglo-Saxon” allies and certainly Australia are also likely to join.
Against such a very broad coalition that need not be cohesive to be capable — a most unusual virtue in any alliance — China has only one certain ally: Pakistan, from whose nationality is as separable as those of Austria-Hungary. Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Iran — if still under their present governments — are also likely to rally to China’s side purely in the name of anti-Americanism, but among them only Ecuador is a Pacific power, and not one of the greatest.
Only the addition of the Russian Federation to the Chinese side would have true strategic significance. Accordingly, if China’s conduct persists on its post-2008 path inevitably evoking a coalition against it, Moscow will emerge as the true focus and prize of global diplomacy — even more so because the Russian Federation would bring with it its Central Asian allies.
So long as the West continues to badger the Russian government for being a Russian and not a Scandinavian or American government, China will have a fair chance of success in this contest, even though the Russians too have become its weary and watchful neighbors. For the other side, India may hold the key to success because its successive governments have wisely and very persistently refused to accompany their opening to the United States with the abandonment of long-standing connections with Russia and its military and aviation industries. To the contrary, even as India started to buy US military equipment, adding one more supplier to the fading Europeans and interactive Israelis, it has actually expanded its dealings with Russia’s military aviation industries. India is allocating important sums for this purpose, an excellent investment strategically, because co-produced systems, starting with the successor to the versatile Sukhoi heavyweight fighter, cannot be offered to third parties without the consent of each side.
To be sure, the very meaning of any Great Power strategic alliance is now far different from its 1914 predecessors. Those were veritable military pacts, mutual undertakings to mobilize and deploy combat forces for war. Their purely mechanical interaction could notoriously overcome whatever prudent statecraft remained to stop the path to war. In 2011, prudence is not more abundant, but nuclear deterrence is the sturdy obstacle to any war between nuclear powers, indeed any combat that ranks above a mere incident. It is only as a theoretical end-point of military force-planning that war remains a valid concept within the circle of the greater powers — not as a realistic prospect.
Hence, these days, the defining function of alliances is not to combine combat forces and concert plans to prepare for war, but to the contrary, to dissuade war more broadly, by extending the reach of deterrence from ally to ally. This would also mean, however, that any bilateral crisis with China on one side, would become multi-lateral on the other, expanding the dimension of the crisis and its consequences on broader relations between all concerned. Thus even if war is simply ruled out or, much less realistically, crises are treated as inconsequential incidents, China’s leaders would still have excellent reasons to be greatly concerned by the emergence of any coalition engendered by their own over-assertive behavior and excessively rapid military growth. Strategic alliances of course influence non-military relations as well, including international trade if only in subtle ways. If rival blocs emerge, restrictions on inter-bloc trade would be inevitable if only for dual-use equipment, and technologies, and that is only a start: as of now Chinese-made civilian telecommunications is sometimes rejected for security reasons. Even outright embargos more or less multi-lateral (there are always trade defectors) are a possibility in the event of descents into overt confrontations, as “cold war” substitutes for the impossibility of real war.
Beyond any material consequences, the purely attitudinal effects of worsening strategic relations would be very costly in themselves for the peoples on both sides. Communication and cooperation in all spheres of life would be diminished and deformed in all sorts of ways, atrophying the myriad of individual, familial, institutional, societal and national relationships that have flourished since China rejoined the world after 1976. Thus even the lesser evils of the present drifting to a multi-lateral struggle would be amply damaging for the world as a whole, but more so for a still rising China.
It follows that unless the Chinese government can somehow find ways to assemble an overwhelmingly powerful global coalition on its side, its best option at the highest level of Grand Strategy must now be to de-construct its assertive diplomatic stance over territorial disputes and much else, and decisively decelerate the pace of its military growth.
The latter has become an increasing problem in itself, not so much because of the actual, material, build-up of military strength whose dimensions are not especially immoderate, but because of accompanying displays that are highly provocative. One that preceded the 2008 turning point was the January 19, 2007 destruction of a Chinese satellite in orbit by a ballistic missile. That was not a new capability by any means, but there were no intercepts in space because of their alarming effects on all satellite-using countries, and the noxious scattering of debris in space. The very latest display seems calculated to alarm China’s neighbors: the leaked photos of the J-20 fighter-bomber, whose ultra-modern appearance implies “stealth capabilities”, and whose vast size significantly exceeds that of its largest US counterpart, the F-22 (whose production was stopped because it was “too powerful”), implying a large internal bomb-bay for strike missions. It may be that many years will pass before the J-20 acquires efficient engines and advanced electronics to make it useful for combat, but by parking the aircraft in a Chengdu airfield unscreened from photography, one result has already been achieved: China’s neighbors have one more reason to fear its military growth, one more reason to coalesce against it. Why that should be seen as favorable to China’s overall interests is a mystery.
Perhaps it is delusional to believe that the Chinese leadership can resist powerful emotional impulses and determined institutional interests to instead subject its policies to the iron logic of strategy, with its paradoxical and “unnatural” prescriptions. The rewards would be very great –just as great as China’s comparative advantage in most peaceful pursuits – but there is nothing easy about valid strategic conduct, indeed very hard things would have to be done. In China’s case at this juncture, new declaratory stances with the softest and nicest words in place of arrogance would help, but could not be enough to stop the coalescence of adversarial reactions that is already underway. Nor can disputes be solved by ordinary diplomatic negotiations premised in the usual way on reciprocity and conditionality—to do so would merely open new venues for contention. The only option would be to set aside all disputes that cannot be ended by Chinese concessions (as in the past), or else to give them up to binding international arbitration. The Chinese government might itself assume the highly conducive task of initiating the establishment of an effective arbitration venue, and its modalities, in a very non-provocative transition from “rule-taking” to “rule-making”. This would also be a good opportunity to diffuse the notion of rén (仁).
Most difficult of all perhaps, would be to adopt unilaterally a severe form of self-imposed arms limitation, to retain the nuclear deterrent and “defensive primacy” forces for territorial security, while allowing more offensive capabilities to atrophy, even those that are only offensive operationally, and not strategically. Militarily that would be a retrograde step, it would be unfair, and it would certainly disappoint perfectly understandable and not especially unreasonable military ambitions. But only a recessive military policy, along with an emotionally very unsatisfying emollient diplomacy, could balance the unprecedented magnitude of China’s economic growth and technological advancement, keeping the whole within systemically acceptable limits. The more conventional course of continuing to forge ahead in all directions, hoping that all will turn out well after all, is certainly more natural, and politically infinitely easier. But the logic of strategy is not only paradoxical; it is also cruel to those who hope for the best instead of averting the worst.
Footnotes
[i] M. Taylor Fravel Strong Borders Secure Nation: cooperation and conflict in China’s territorial disputes. Princeton University Press 2008. Passim; and summary : Table 1.3 pp.46-47
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In South China Sea By Andrew Higgins
Washington Post, September 18, 2011
PUERTO PRINCESA, PHILIPPINES — When China’s largest offshore petroleum producer launched a $1 billion oil rig this summer from Shanghai, Lt. Gen. Juancho Sabban, the commander of Philippine military forces 1,500 miles away in the South China Sea, began preparing for trouble.
The drilling platform, said China, would soon be heading in the general’s direction — southward into waters rich in oil and natural gas, and also in volatile fuel for potential conflict.
“We started war-gaming what we could do,” said Sabban, a barrel-chested, American-trained marine who, as chief of the Philippines’ Western Command, is responsible for keeping out intruders from a wide swath of sea that Manila views as its own but that is also claimed by Beijing.
Arguments over who owns what in the South China Sea have rumbled on for decades, ever since the doomed Chinese government of Chiang Kai-shek in 1947 issued a crude map with 11 dashes marking as Chinese almost the entire 1.3 million-square-mile waterway. The Communist Party toppled Chiang but kept his map and his expansive claims, though it trimmed a couple of dashes.
Today, China’s insatiable thirst for energy has injected a highly combustible new element into long-running quarrels over cartography, arcane issues of international law and ancient shards of pottery that Beijing says testify to its “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea.
China, which imports more than half its oil, will nearly double its demand for the stuff over the next quarter-century, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. Its demand for natural gas — which is believed to be particularly abundant beneath an archipelago of contested islands and reefs, known as the Spratlys, just west of here — is projected to more than quadruple.
With consumption soaring and the price of imports rising, China is desperate for new sources to boost its proven energy reserves, which for oil now account for just 1.1 percent of the world total — a paltry share for a country that last year consumed 10.4 percent of total world oil production and 20.1 percent of all the energy consumed on the planet, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
As a result, Beijing views disputed waters as not merely an arena for nationalist flag-waving but as indispensable to its future economic well-being.
A big factor in this uncertainty is a meshing of Chinese commercial, strategic and military calculations. Like other giant energy companies in China, the China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, the owner of the new Chinese rig, pursues profit but is ultimately answerable to the party, whose secretive Organization Department appoints its boss.
The oil corporation is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, but a state-owned parent company in Beijing holds a majority of its shares — and makes all key decisions. This adds a layer of hidden calculation to what, in companies driven only by the bottom line, would be a straightforward and relatively predictable business agenda.
When CNOOC took delivery of the new high-tech rig in May, Sabban took fright at Chinese reports that it would start work at an unspecified location in the South China Sea. With only a handful of aging vessels under his command but determined to block any drilling in Philippine-claimed waters, he came up with an unorthodox battle plan: He asked Filipino fishermen to be ready to use their boats to block the mammoth rig should it show up off the coast of Palawan, a Philippine island from whose capital, Puerto Princesa, the lieutenant general runs Western Command.
“We can’t stand up to the military power of China, but we can still resist,” said Sabban, who trained with the U.S. Marine Corps at Quantico, got a master’s degree at the Naval War College in Rhode Island and, with help from U.S. troops, battled Islamic rebels in the Philippines’ unruly south. “We have to send a message that we will defend our territory,” said Sabban, noting that parts of the Spratly Islands — which the Philippines calls Kalayaan, or freedom — lie just over 100 miles from here, and more than 1,000 miles from China.
Negotiating a settlement
CNOOC declined to comment on the whereabouts of its drilling platform — which allows China to drill in much deeper waters than before — and reconnaissance flights by the Philippines military have not yet picked up any sign of it. On a recent visit to Beijing, Philippine President Benigno Aquino and Chinese Communist Party leader Hu Jintao pledged to settle their nations’ rival claims peacefully through negotiation, though they remained far apart on who exactly should negotiate: Beijing wants to talk separately with each claimant; Manila and other smaller nations favor a regional settlement.
And nobody yet really knows the true extent of the hydrocarbon wealth they would be negotiating over. In the absence of detailed surveys, estimates vary widely, though even a low-ball figure by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the South China Sea could contain nearly twice China’s known reserves of oil and plenty of gas, too.
China’s own estimates are many times higher. In January, the Ministry of Land and Resources in Beijing told the People’s Daily, the Party’s official organ, that Chinese geologists had found 38 oil and gas fields under the South China Sea and would start exploiting them this year. The ministry declined to elaborate or make officials available for interviews.
During the past year, China has grown increasingly assertive in its maritime claims, which collide with those of not only the Philippines but also Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, and in a dispute with Japan over islands in the East China Sea, which also lie near oil and gas deposits.
Early this year, Chinese vessels, including craft from the People’s Liberation Army Navy, erected posts and unloaded construction materials on and near a reef near the coast of Palawan. Sabban had the Chinese markers dismantled.
China has been particularly keen to thwart efforts by the Philippines and others to exploit resources it wants for itself. This spring, Sabban said, Chinese naval vessels harassed a seismic survey ship working for Forum Energy, a British firm looking for oil under contract with the Philippines. After two days of near-collisions, Sabban sent out a small military plane to fly over the area.
“Fortunately, the Chinese withdrew,” he said. A new round of surveys is due to start early next year, setting up another potential confrontation.
China has not objected to a big existing natural gas field off Palawan developed by a state-owned Philippine company, Shell and Chevron but has demanded that Manila stay away from potential energy wealth in the nearby Spratlys. The Department of Energy in Manila is nonetheless now taking bids for 15 new offshore exploration blocks, three of them in or near contested waters.
Ismael Ocampo, the department’s director of energy resource development, said he’d like CNOOC to make a bid as that would mean Beijing acknowledges Philippine jurisdiction. But, with that unlikely to happen, he’d prefer a big American firm as “they have an armada of battleships” behind them.
Across the region, militaries are bulking up, most notably China’s, which in August launched its first aircraft carrier, built on a Soviet-made hull. Beijing, which has boosted defense spending by annual average of more than 12 percent over the past decade, has poured money into its navy. It completed a huge new naval base last year on Hainan Island to accommodate attack and ballistic-missile submarines for its South Sea Fleet and has made far more rapid progress than expected in developing anti-ship missiles that could one day sink U.S. aircraft carriers. According to a recent Pentagon report, China will likely build “multiple” carriers of its own over the next decade.
Vietnam, which in May accused China of slicing cables from an oil survey ship, is meanwhile buying Russian submarines and hosting visits by the U.S. Navy. The Philippines has just bought what is now its navy’s biggest vessel: a 40-year-old former U.S. Coast Guard ship. Washington — which has a 20-year-old mutual-defense treaty with Manila — threw in a new weapons system for free.
The new vessel’s main job will be helping Sabban’s Western Command boost patrols off the coast of Palawan, a narrow, 265-mile-long island that juts into the South China Sea.
Fueling deep unease
In some areas, China’s desire to maintain a steady supply of energy matches the interests of the United States and other nations: All want to ensure that sea lanes remain open and that oil tankers can pass undisturbed through the Malacca Strait on their way to China, Japan and elsewhere.
But China’s insistence that it owns virtually the whole sea — and the resources beneath it — has fueled deep unease, undoing much of the goodwill China previously worked hard to develop.
“Maybe they need energy more than they need their image,” said Abraham Mitra, the governor of Palawan. Along with Sabban, the governor this summer took a military plane to a Pagasa, a Philippine-controlled island in the Spratlys with a population of 50 and a small garrison, and waved their country’s flag. China accused them of trespassing on Chinese turf.
The mission was organized by a left-wing legislator, Walden Bello, who, after years of criticizing the United States, now worries more about China. “Just look at their maps and you say: ‘My God, how do they come up with these claims?’ ” Bello said. He sponsored a motion in parliament for the South China Sea to be called the West Philippine Sea.
Some politicians, though not Bello, even want the United States to reestablish military bases in the Philippines — 20 years after Manila, in a burst of nationalist ardor at a time when few here paid much attention to China, booted out the U.S. Navy and Air Force.
“We need the U.S. to come back. The U.S. needs to come back, too,” said James “Bongo” Gordon, the mayor of Olongopo, the town adjoining Subic Bay, which until 2001 housed a sprawling U.S. naval base. Lt. Gen. Sabban and Mitra, Palawan’s governor, scoff at the idea of the United States setting up again in Subic Bay but say it should take a look at Palawan, much closer to possible flash points in the Spratlys.
At his seafront headquarters, Sabban showed off a modest trophy of his efforts to assert Philippine sovereignty: a small fiberglass boat and three Yamaha outboard motors. His men seized the vessel and its Chinese crew of six in March off the southern coast of Palawan.
Interviewed in a Puerto Princesa jail, the Chinese crewmen said they’d set out from the Chinese island of Hainan to hunt for fish and got lost after their navigation equipment failed. They declined to identify their boat’s owner. Sabban doubts this story and thinks they were part of a bigger Chinese flotilla as their tiny craft could not have sailed so far on its own. What they were up to, though, isn’t clear.
After years of public indifference, the South China Sea — where the Philippines controls five tiny islands, two reefs and two sandbars — is now front-page news here. Alarm over China’s intentions even seeped into a recent beauty pageant.
The winner of this year’s “Miss Palawan” contest was 18-year-old Sarah Sopio Osorio, an accounting student who entered as the representative for Kalayaan, as the Philippines calls the Spratlys. She won after a spirited speech in favor of Philippine claims.
Osorio doesn’t live in Kalayaan but does visit for a month each year with her parents, who work in the local government of Pagasa island. The trip takes three days by boat from Puerto Princesa: “I vomit all the way,” the beauty queen said. Nonetheless, she says, the Philippines must hang on to its territory against “greedy” Chinese demands. She’s in no doubt about what’s fueling China’s appetites: “Oil is the only reason. That is it.”
The Inevitable Superpower: Why China’s Dominance Is a Sure Thing
by Arvind Subramanian <http://www.piie.com/staff/author_bio.cfm?author_id=488> , Peterson Institute for International Economics
Article in Foreign Affairs, Volume 90, Number 5, September/October 2011.
August 23, 2011
© Foreign Affairs <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/> . Reposted with permission.
Arvind Subramanian is senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and at the Center for Global Development. This article is adapted from his book Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance <http://www.piie.com/eclipse.cfm> (2011).
To debtors, creditors can be like dictators. Governments in financial trouble often turn to the International Monetary Fund as supplicants, and acting at the behest of its own major creditors, the IMF often imposes tough conditions on them. After the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Mickey Kantor, U.S. trade representative under President Bill Clinton, called the organization “a battering ram,” because it had served to open up Asian markets to U.S. products. During the 1956 Suez crisis, the United States threatened to withhold financing that the United Kingdom desperately needed unless British forces withdrew from the Suez Canal. Harold Macmillan, who, as the British chancellor of the exchequer, presided over the last, humiliating stages of the crisis, would later recall that it was “the last gasp of a declining power.” He added, “perhaps in 200 years the United States would know how we felt.”
Is that time already fast approaching, with China poised to take over from the United States? This is an essential question, and yet it has not yet been taken seriously enough in the United States. There, this central conceit still reigns: the United States’ economic preeminence cannot be seriously threatened because it is the United States’ to lose, and sooner or later, the United States will rise to the challenge of not losing it. China may be on its way to becoming an economic superpower, and the United States may have to share the global stage with it in the future. But, the argument goes, the threat from China is not so imminent, so great, or so multifaceted that it can push the United States out of the driver’s seat.
Thus, the economist Barry Eichengreen concludes in his recent history of different reserve currencies, Exorbitant Privilege, “The good news, such as it is, is that the fate of the dollar is in our hands, not those of the Chinese.” And in December 2010, as he was leaving the White House as President Barack Obama’s national economic adviser, Larry Summers said, “Predictions of America’s decline are as old as the republic. But they perform a crucial function in driving the kind of renewal that is required of each generation of Americans. I submit to you that as long as we’re worried about the future, the future will be better. We have our challenges. But we also have the most flexible, dynamic, entrepreneurial society the world has ever seen.” In other words, if the United States can get its economic house in order, it can head off the Chinese threat.
But such views underestimate the probability that China will be economically dominant in 20 years. And they reveal a one-sided, U.S.-centric perspective: that world dominance will be determined mostly by the actions of the United States, not those of China. In fact, the outcome of this race is far more likely to be shaped by China.
THE WORLD IN 2030
Broadly speaking, economic dominance is the ability of a state to use economic means to get other countries to do what it wants or to prevent them from forcing it to do what it does not want. Such means include the size of a country’s economy, its trade, the health of its external and internal finances, its military prowess, its technological dynamism, and the international status that its currency enjoys. My forthcoming book develops an index of dominance combining just three key factors: a country’s GDP, its trade (measured as the sum of its exports and imports of goods), and the extent to which it is a net creditor to the rest of the world. GDP matters because it determines the overall resources that a country can muster to project power against potential rivals or otherwise have its way. Trade, and especially imports, determines how much leverage a country can get from offering or denying other countries access to its markets. And being a leading financier confers extraordinary influence over other countries that need funds, especially in times of crisis. No other gauge of dominance is as instructive as these three: the others are largely derivative (military strength, for example, depends on the overall health and size of an economy in the long run), marginal (currency dominance), or difficult to measure consistently across countries (fiscal strength).
I computed this index going back to 1870 (focusing on the United Kingdom’s and the United States’ economic positions then) and projected it to 2030 (focusing on the United States’ and China’s positions then). The projections are based on fairly conservative assumptions about China’s future growth, acknowledging that China faces several major challenges going forward. For starters, its population will begin to age over the coming decade. And its economy is severely distorted in several respects: overly cheap capital has led to excessive investment; the exchange rate has been undervalued, which has led to the overdevelopment of exports; and energy is subsidized, leading to its inefficient use and pollution. Correcting these distortions will impose costly dislocations. To take account of these costs, I project that China’s growth will slow down considerably: it will average seven percent a year over the next 20 years, compared with the approximately 11 percent it has registered over the last decade. History suggests that plenty of economies—Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan—grew at the pace I project for China after they reached China’s current level of development. Meanwhile, I assume that the U.S. economy will grow at about 2.5 percent per year, as it has over the last 30 years. This is slightly optimistic compared with the Congressional Budget Office’s latest long-term growth forecast of 2.2 percent, a forecast that the CBO lowers occasionally because of the negative impact of the country’s accumulating public and private debt and sustained high unemployment on the U.S. economy.
The upshot of my analysis is that by 2030, relative U.S. decline will have yielded not a multipolar world but a near-unipolar one dominated by China. China will account for close to 20 percent of global GDP (measured half in dollars and half in terms of real purchasing power), compared with just under 15 percent for the United States. At that point, China’s per capita GDP will be about $33,000, or about half of U.S. GDP. In other words, China will not be dirt poor, as is commonly believed. Moreover, it will generate 15 percent of world trade—twice as much as will the United States. By 2030, China will be dominant whether one thinks GDP is more important than trade or the other way around; it will be ahead on both counts.
According to this index and these projections, China’s ascendancy is imminent. Although the United States’ GDP is greater than China’s today and the two countries’ respective trade levels are close, the United States is a very large and vulnerable debtor—it hogs about 50 percent of the world’s net capital flows—whereas China is a substantial net creditor to the world. In 2010, the United States’ lead over China was marginal: there was less than one percentage point difference between their respective indices of dominance. In fact, if one weighed these factors slightly differently, giving slightly less weight to the size of the economy relative to trade, China was already ahead of the United States in 2010.
China’s ascendancy in the future will also apply to many more issues than is recognized today. The Chinese economy will be larger than the economy of the United States and larger than that of any other country, and so will its trade and supplies of capital. The yuan will be a credible rival to the dollar as the world’s premier reserve currency.
What is more, the gap between China and the United States will be far greater than expected. In 2010, the U.S. National Intelligence Council assessed that in 2025, “the U.S. will remain the preeminent power, but that American dominance will be much diminished.” This is unduly optimistic. My projections suggest that the gap between China and the United States in 2030 will be similar to that between the United States and its rivals in the mid-1970s, the heyday of U.S. hegemony, and greater than that between the United Kingdom and its rivals during the halcyon days of the British Empire, in 1870. In short, China’s future economic dominance is more imminent and will be both greater and more varied than is currently supposed.
STRONG LIKE A BULL
Martin Wolf, the Financial Times columnist, has used the term “premature superpower” to describe China’s unique ability to wield power despite being poor. According to my projections, however, by 2030, China will not be so badly off. Rather, its GDP per capita (in terms of purchasing power parity) will be more than half that of the United States and greater than the average per capita GDP around the world. Still, China’s economic dominance will be singular: unlike in the past, when the dominant powers—the United Kingdom and the United States—were very rich relative to their competitors, China will be just a middle- or upper-middle-income country. And can a country be dominant even when it is not among the richest?
There are three plausible reasons for thinking that it cannot. First, a relatively poor country might have to subordinate its hopes of projecting power internationally to its need to address more pressing domestic challenges, such as achieving higher standards of living and greater social stability. Second, it might not be able to reliably raise the resources it needs to project power abroad. Military assets, for one thing, have to be financed, and poorer countries have more difficulty taxing their citizens than do rich countries. Third, a poor country can have only so much influence abroad if it does not have soft power, such as democracy, an open society, or pluralistic values. The leadership that comes with dominance lasts only if it inspires followers: only those who stand for something that commands universal or near-universal appeal are inspiring. Likewise, only a rich country—one on the economic and technological edge—can be a fount of ideas, technology, institutions, and practices for others.
That said, even if dominance is generally inconsistent with poverty, one can be dominant without being among the richest countries. Even a middle-income power, which China is likely to be by 2030, can be internally cohesive, raise resources for external purposes (such as military expenditures), and possess some inspiring national ideals. In fact, despite China’s relatively low per capita GDP today, it is already dominant in several ways. China convinced the African countries in which it invests heavily to close down the Taiwanese embassies they were hosting. With $3 trillion in foreign reserves, it has offered to buy Greek, Irish, Portuguese, and Spanish debt to forestall or mitigate financial chaos in Europe. (“China is Spain’s best friend,” said Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in April on the occasion of the Chinese president’s visit.) China has also used its size to strengthen its trade and financial relationships in Asia and Latin America: for example, trade transactions among several countries in both regions can now be settled in yuan.
Above all, China’s exchange-rate policy has affected economies throughout the world, hurting developing countries as much as the United States: by keeping its currency cheap, China has managed to keep its exports more competitive than those from countries such as Bangladesh, India, Mexico, and Vietnam. Yet these countries have stood on the sidelines, leaving Washington to wage a crusade against Beijing on its own—and for that reason, it has not done so very successfully. China, meanwhile, has been able to buy off the opposition. Although many countries chafe at seeing their competitiveness undermined by an undervalued yuan, they remain silent, either for fear of China’s political muscle or because China offers them financial assistance or trading opportunities. Even within the United States, few groups have really been critical. China is a large market for U.S. companies, and so it is the liberal left, not the holders of U.S. capital, that has condemned China’s exchange-rate policy, on behalf of U.S. workers.
Even if China is unlikely to muster anytime soon the kind of dominance that naturally inspires or might be necessary to build international systems and institutions like those the United States created after World War II, Beijing is already exercising other forms of dominance. For example, it can require that U.S. and European firms share their technology with Chinese firms before granting them access to its market. And it can pursue policies that have systemic effects, despite opposition from much of the world. Its policy of undervaluing its exchange rate is a classic beggar-thy-neighbor strategy that undermines the openness of the world’s trading and financial systems while also creating the conditions for easy liquidity, which contributed to the recent global economic crisis. Chinese dominance is not looming. In some ways, it is already here.
DROWNING BY NUMBERS
Can the United States reverse this trend? Its economic future inspires angst: the country has a fiscal problem, a growth problem, and, perhaps most intractable of all, a middle-class problem. Repeated tax cuts and two wars, the financial and economic crisis of 2008–10, the inexorable growth of long-term entitlements (especially related to health), and the possible buildup of bad assets for which the government might eventually be responsible have created serious doubts about the U.S. public sector’s balance sheet. High public and private debt and long-term unemployment will depress long-term growth. And a combination of stagnating middle-class incomes, growing inequality, declining mobility, and, more recently, falling prospects for even the college educated has created big distributional problems. The middle class is feeling beleaguered: it does not want to have to move down the skill ladder, but its upward prospects are increasingly limited by competition from China and India.
The United States’ continued strength comes from its can-do attitude about fixing its economic problems and its confidence that sound economic fundamentals can ensure its enduring economic dominance. Most notably, the United States affords unique opportunities for entrepreneurship “because it has a favorable business culture, the most mature venture capital industry, close relations between universities and industry, and an open immigration policy,” according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, an academic consortium that studies entrepreneurial activity worldwide. In a 2009 survey, GEM ranked the United States first in the world in providing such opportunities. Nearly all the major commercially successful companies that have made technological breakthroughs in the last three decades—Apple and Microsoft, Google and Facebook—were founded and are based in the United States. In fact, it was by finding new and dynamic sources of growth in the 1990s that the United States was able to head off the economic challenge posed by that era’s rising power, Japan. Today, optimists argue that the United States can replicate that experience with China. It is true that if the U.S. economy were to grow consistently at a rate of 3.5 percent over the next 20 years, as it did in the 1990s, investor sentiment and confidence in the dollar as a reserve currency could be buoyed.
But some key differences today should dampen any such hope. The United States headed into the 1990s with far less government debt than it will have in the future. In 1990, the ratio of public debt to GDP was about 42 percent, whereas the COB’s latest projected figure for 2020 is close to 100 percent. The external position of the United States was also less vulnerable two decades ago. For example, in 1990, foreign holdings of U.S. government debt amounted to 19 percent; today, they are close to 50 percent, and a majority are in China’s hands. In the 1990s, the country was also considerably further away from the date at which it would have to reckon with the cost of entitlements.
And then there is the United States’ beleaguered middle class. Over the last 20 years, several related pathologies that have squeezed the American middle class, such as a stagnating median income, have become more entrenched and more intractable. Even a 3.5 percent growth rate, which would be well above current expectations, may not be adequate to maintain confidence in the U.S. model, which is based on the hope of a better future for many.
In other words, the United States cannot escape the inexorable logic of demography and the fact that poor countries, especially China, are catching up with it. China, which is four times as populous as the United States, will be a bigger economy as soon as its average standard of living (measure in per capita GDP) exceeds one-quarter of the United States’. By some measures, including my own, this has already occurred, and as China continues to grow, the gap will only widen. A resurgent United States might be able to slow down that process, but it will not be able to prevent it. Growing by 3.5 percent, rather than 2.5 percent, over the next 20 years might boost the United States’ economic performance, social stability, and national mood. But it would not make a significant difference in its position relative to China in the face of, say, a seven percent growth rate there.
These projections undermine the dominant belief that the United States’ economic preeminence is its own to lose. It is China’s actions that will largely determine whether the differential in growth between China and the United States is modest or great. China can radically mess up, for example, if it allows asset bubbles to build or if it fails to stave off political upheaval. Or it can surge ahead by correcting existing economic distortions, especially by moving away from an export-intensive growth strategy toward one that develops demand at home. The United States’ range of action is much narrower. If the United States is unlikely to grow significantly slower than by 2.0–2.5 percent, it is even more unlikely to grow faster than by 3.5 percent. This is the curse of being at the frontier of economic development: both the potential downsides and the potential upsides are limited.
Even if the United States grows fast—say, by 3.5 percent—other countries, such as China, may grow faster, too, leaving the basic picture of their relative economic power unaffected. In fact, when the pace of technological innovation in leading countries, such as the United States, quickens, the new technologies become quickly available to poorer countries, providing a stimulus to their growth, too. Even more important than producing new technologies is having the human capital and the skills to use them. According to the National Science Foundation, in 2006 there were nearly twice as many undergraduates in science and engineering in China as in the United States. This differential is likely only to grow. Despite having a considerably worse educational system than the United States, China seems well positioned to absorb new technologies. There were six times as many peer-reviewed scientific publications in the United States as in China in 2002—and just 2.5 times as many in 2008. The ability of rich countries to stay ahead in terms of growth is inherently limited because China is better able to absorb and use new technologies. China’s technological sophistication is growing: the United States, Europe, and Japan export very few products that China does not also export. More generally, if growth in the United States slows, China’s growth might be unaffected, but if it accelerates, China’s growth might, too. Either way, the United States cannot pull away.
BACK TO SUEZ
Even a resurgent United States could not exercise power and dominance over a rising China. China is already able to do what the rest of the world does not want it to do. Might it soon be able to get the United States to do what the United States does not want to do? Is another Suez crisis possible?
In 1956, with sterling under pressure because of Egypt’s blockade of the Suez Canal, the United Kingdom turned to the United States for financial assistance, invoking their “special relationship.” But U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower refused. He was furious that the British (and the French) had attacked Egypt after President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal, just as he was campaigning for reelection as the man of peace who had ended the fighting on the Korean Peninsula. He demanded that the United Kingdom comply with a U.S.-sponsored UN resolution requiring the prompt and unconditional withdrawal of British troops. If it did not, Washington would block the United Kingdom’s access to resources from the IMF. But if it did, it would get substantial financial assistance. The United Kingdom agreed, and the United States supported a massive financial package, including an unprecedented IMF loan worth $1.3 billion and a $500 million loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank.
Now, imagine a not-so-distant future in which the United States has recovered from the crisis of 2008–10 but remains saddled with structural problems: widening income gaps, a squeezed middle class, and reduced economic and social mobility. Its financial system is still as fragile as before the crisis, and the government has yet to come to grips with the rising costs of entitlements and the buildup of bad assets in the financial system, which the government might have to take over. Inflation is a major global problem because commodity prices are skyrocketing as a result of rapid growth in emerging markets. China has an economy and a trade flow twice as large as the United States’. The dollar has lost its sheen; demand for the yuan as a reserve currency is growing.
Much as in 1956, when Washington was suspected of orchestrating massive sales of sterling in New York to force the British government to withdraw its troops from the Suez Canal, rumors are swirling that China is planning to wield its financial power; it has had enough of the United States’ naval presence in the Pacific Ocean. Beijing starts selling some of its currency reserves (by then likely to amount to $4 trillion). Investors grow skittish, fearing that the dollar might collapse, and bond markets turn on U.S. government paper. The United States soon loses its AAA credit rating. Auctions for U.S. Treasury bonds find no buyers. To maintain confidence, the U.S. Federal Reserve sharply raises interest rates. Before long, interest rates substantially exceed growth rates, and the United States urgently needs cheap financing. It turns to oil exporters, but the friendly autocrats of yore have been replaced by illiberal democrats of various Islamic persuasions, ranging from moderate to extreme, and all with long memories of U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Much as for Greece, Ireland, and Portugal recently, seeking help from the IMF seems unavoidable: defaulting on U.S. debt obligations would be fatal to the effort to preserve what is left of the United States’ global role.
But by this time, China, already the world’s largest banker since 2000, controls the spigot. Although it, too, deems that an IMF bailout is necessary, it has a precondition: the withdrawal of the United States’ naval presence in the western Pacific. The request has bite because China, as the IMF’s largest contributor and a benefactor to many of its members, can easily block the United States’ request for financing. By then, China may even have acquired veto power thanks to the governance reforms scheduled for 2018.
Some will say this scenario is pure fantasy. After all, the United States could easily withhold financing from the United Kingdom in 1956 because doing so had no serious consequences for the dollar or the U.S. economy. But if tomorrow, China sold, or just stopped buying, U.S. Treasury bonds, the dollar would decline and the yuan would appreciate—the very outcome that China has steadfastly been trying to prevent. China is unlikely to suddenly undermine its mercantilist growth strategy and risk large capital losses on its stock of foreign exchange reserves. Others might say that even if China were willing to do so, if the U.S. economy were depressed, the Federal Reserve might be only too happy to buy up any U.S. Treasuries dumped by China.
But all this leaves out that China’s incentives might be very different in the future. Ten years on, China might be less wedded to keeping the yuan weak. If it continues to slowly internationalize its currency, both its ability to maintain a weak yuan and its interest in doing so may soon disappear. And when they do, China’s power over the United States will become considerable. In 1956, the United Kingdom’s financiers were dispersed across the public and private sectors. But the Chinese government is the largest net supplier of capital to the United States: it holds many U.S. Treasury bonds and finances the U.S. deficit. Leverage over the United States is concentrated in Beijing’s hands.
Of course, the prospects of a dollar devaluation would probably be less painful for the United States in this hypothetical future than the prospects of a weakening sterling was for the United Kingdom in 1956. Back then, a devaluation of sterling would have inflicted heavy losses on the currencies of the United Kingdom’s former colonies that held large sterling-denominated assets. These colonies would have sold their sterling assets, weakening their economic links with the United Kingdom. Preventing this was important to the government in London in order to preserve what was left of the British Empire. A devaluation of the dollar would be less of a problem partly because the United States’ foreign liabilities are denominated in dollars.
A repeat of the Suez crisis may seem improbable today. But the United States’ current economic situation does leave the country fundamentally vulnerable in the face of China’s inescapable dominance. The United Kingdom was playing with a weak hand during the Suez crisis not just because it was in debt and its economy was weakening but also because another great economic power had emerged. Today, even as the United States’ economy is structurally weak, its addiction to debt has made the country dependent on foreigners, and its prospects for growth are minimal, a strong rival has emerged. China may not quite be an adversary, but it is not an ally, either. Macmillan’s 1971 prophecy that the United States might decline “in 200 years” betrayed a mechanical interpretation of history: it projected enduring dominance for the United States, much like his own country had enjoyed. But China could accelerate the patterns of history—and make the United States confront its decline much sooner than Macmillan anticipated or even than most people expect today.
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Hillary Clinton Article/Speech on Asia: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century#.TpQz0hux-Mw.email
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China Belligerency:
India, China in Race for the Bottom in Indian Ocean
By Saurav Jha | 05 Oct 2011
While much has been written about China’s port development projects in the Indian Ocean region, it is actually Beijing’s undersea activities in the area that may prove to be the greater source of consternation for India and its navy. In July, the China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association announced that it had secured approval from the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to explore the southwestern Indian Ocean ridge for polymetallic sulphide nodules.
The move was not received well in Indian policymaking circles, which believe that it not only reflects Beijing’s intentions to extract resources from the Indian Ocean region but may actually pave the way for a naval presence in the medium term. Given India’s recent moves in the South China Sea, it is now increasingly apparent that a slow but steady back and forth of strategic counterposturing is underway in the Indo-Pacific.
The ISA approval allows China’s to search for the nodules — rich in copper, iron, lead, zinc, gold and silver — over an area measuring 3,900 square miles for a period of 15 years and also grants subsequent priority mining rights. A contract expected to be signed in November this year will specifically grant China pre-emptive rights to develop the ore deposits in the future. The move represents a considerable expansion of China’s push to look beyond dwindling land-based resources to power its economic surge.
And the cornerstone of China’s undersea resource ambitions is its manned submersible program, which seems to have made some impressive strides of late. In late July, China’s flagship manned submersible, Jiaolong, dove to a depth of more than 16,586 feet which the Chinese were quick to point out puts 70 percent of the world’s seabeds within its reach. An even more ambitious depth of 22,960 feet is now being targeted by the submersible team in 2012, which as of now would be the deepest dive ever made by such a vessel.
In an eerie echo of the Cold War moon race, where the Soviet Union sent unmanned rovers to the moon while America launched manned lunar missions, India has focused on unmanned submersibles even as the Chinese have been touting the Jialong. A remotely operated submersible launched by India’s National Institute of Ocean Technology broke the 3-mile mark last year itself when it reached a depth of 19,119 feet in the central Indian Ocean.
India has long been aware of the potential represented by the polymetallic nodule deposits, given that it recovered its first such sample back in the 1980s. However, it is only in the past decade that India has moved forward in a concerted manner on this front, with the pull having come from the need to feed its growing industrialization and the push from China’s program, which was initiated in 2002. India still holds mining rights for more than 29,250 square miles of seabed in the Indian Ocean region, and it had even more until recently, but voluntarily gave up its rights over some blocs which it deemed as unviable. Curiously enough, it is many of these very blocs for which China sought and has now secured approval to explore.
Indeed, even as the two rising nations vie for the undersea resource sweepstakes, India’s Directorate of Naval Intelligence (DNI) is worried that the recent ISA license grants the Chinese the legal right to carry out hydrographic studies in the area as well as deploy warships to patrol possible drill sites. DNI believes that viably extracting resources is still some years away and that the ISA application could very well have military motives.
In an extreme scenario, bathymetric studies could well pave the way for extended patrols by Chinese nuclear-powered submarines in the area. India’s future missile defenses are likely to be oriented toward its northern land borders, leaving it far more vulnerable to a missile attack from its south. Conversely, China could also plant sensor buoys in the area to spy on transiting foreign submarines, including Indian ones.
China’s moves into the Indian Ocean region via the ISA application may be one of the key reasons why India is standing firm on it exploration interests in the Vietnamese-controlled portions of the South China Sea. Indian officials are not amused that China has taken recourse to the ISA to move into the Indian Ocean, while claiming indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea, which is a major international waterway. To India, this is analogous to the Chinese position on Kashmir, wherein Beijing recognizes Pakistani-controlled Gilgit-Baltistan as a part of Pakistan, with the portion ceded to China thereby legitimately transferred, while at the same time referring to Indian Kashmir as a disputed territory.
It seems that India will appeal to the ISA’s Legal & Technical Commission to ensure that “adequate safeguards were incorporated in the license and activities are carried out in accordance with the contract” — a move that certainly does not indicate a very high degree of confidence in China’s purported exploration activities. Nevertheless, India is also investing serious resources in a manned submersible program parallel to its existing unmanned program, even as the Chinese have made it clear that they are preparing applications for more exploration blocs in the region. Clearly Asia’s newest “arms” race is underway.
Saurav Jha studied economics at Presidency College, Calcutta, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He writes and researches on global energy issues and clean energy development in Asia. His first book for Harper Collins India, “The Upside Down Book of Nuclear Power,” was published in January 2010. He also works as an independent consultant in the energy sector in India. He can be reached at sjha1618@gmail.com.
Image: Bathymetric map of the Indian Ocean region (image by Wikimedia user Cdc, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2).
http://the-diplomat.com/2011/10/05/south-china-sea-is-no-black-sea/
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Chinese outreach/hospital ship:
http://www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,148262.html
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DOD Future Budget:
DOD Aims To Boost Investment In Capabilities For Major-Power War
By Christopher J. Castelli, InsideDefense.com, September 28, 2011
Navy, Air Force could benefit
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has signed classified guidance advocating
increased investment in military capabilities designed for high-end war
among major powers, according to sources familiar with the document.
The Pentagon is “not walking away” from the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, fought largely by soldiers and Marines trained in
counterinsurgency operations, but the discussion of potential threats in
Panetta’s Aug. 29 Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) signals a “new
seriousness about major-power war,” which could trigger a “flowering of
air and naval power,” said a former service official familiar with the
guidance.
As it draws down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and cuts security
spending by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade, the
Defense Department is likely to reduce Army investment and boost funding
for key Air Force and Navy capabilities associated with countering
China, said current and former defense officials.
Although DOD’s budget topline in fiscal year 2013 remains to be decided,
the department is planning to reduce capability for conventional
military operations and counterinsurgency, shrink the size of the
military, maintain counterterrorism capability and invest more in
countering high-end threats like long-range weapons being developed by
China that could challenge U.S.
power projection capabilities in the Western Pacific, said a military
official familiar with Panetta’s guidance.
Panetta’s press secretary and a Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment
on the classified guidance. But Panetta told reporters last week that
DOD’s budget review will develop “a smaller, more agile and more
flexible force for the future.”
The Air Force and Navy have been developing an AirSea Battle concept to
address “anti-access and area-denial” weapons being developed by China.
The concept’s proponents also see applications elsewhere, including in
NATO’s recent naval and air strikes on the Libyan regime of Moammar
Gadhafi.
“It seems clear there will be increased emphasis on AirSea Battle
approach going forward,” said a senior defense official. “Libya is a
good illustration of this.”
In remarks last week to Business Executives for National Security,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen stressed the
importance of investing to keep pace with the growth of China’s
military. And Mullen questioned the wisdom of continuing to treat the
Army, Navy and Air Force as fiscal equals, noting the “one-third,
one-third, one-third” approach to funding the three military departments
could be obsolete.
“I don’t know if that’s right,” said Mullen, who is due to step down
Friday.
“Actually, if it isn’t right, we need to change that.”
John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security and a
retired Army officer, said the budget share has “shifted substantially
over the past decade” because ground forces received substantial funding
for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in the “overseas contingency
operations” account, which is outside the base budget. “Save for that
accounting trick, the Army share of the overall budget would have been
appreciably more than one-third,” he said.
“The Army share of the budget is very likely to drop over the next
decade,”
Nagl said. “We have underinvested in Air Force and Navy platforms during
the wars.” The QDR Independent Panel, which Nagl was a member of,
recommended a larger Navy given emerging threats in the Western Pacific.
He also said Air Force planes need recapitalization, arguing it would be
best to invest relatively more in stealthy drones and less in manned
stealth platforms.
“The ground forces can expand or contract more quickly than can the
capital-intensive air and sea forces,” he said. “They are likely to
decrease in size over the next decade, and should focus on retaining
mid-grade officer and NCO strength in order to be able to expand rapidly
when required.”
If the budget comes out with the “one-third, one-third, one-third” ratio
intact, the comprehensive review “should be judged a complete failure,”
an administration official said. The Army’s topline will likely be cut
harder than other services, the official said.
“Gates was right — there aren’t many contingencies for which we’ll use
100,000 troops to invade and occupy a country,” the official said,
noting the Marine Corps will “get smaller and lighter.”
“The Navy and Air Force are positioned to do well — but I imagine
business as usual for them won’t be an option either,” the official
said, noting unmanned aircraft will need to be a prominent feature for
both. The Navy needs to “get serious” about unmanned combat air vehicles
“if they want to keep carriers relevant” and the Air Force “needs to
rethink whether the long-range bomber will be manned,” the official
said.
Adm. Jonathan Greenert, who became chief of naval operations last week,
cited warfighting as the Navy’s top priority in a Sept. 23 message.
Still, the Navy’s fleet is expected to shrink due to budgetary
pressures. Today, the fleet has 284 ships in its battle force, despite a
313-ship goal. That goal could fall as low as 225, an industry source
said.
Mullen’s successor, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, said at his confirmation
hearing in July that the 313-ship goal is reasonable for DOD’s current
strategy. He noted shipbuilding supports the AirSea Battle concept. But
he also warned the new strategy being developed in conjunction with
budget cuts might not support the 313-ship goal.
Next-war-itis no more
Panetta’s predecessor, Robert Gates, used to complain that the defense
establishment had a case of “next-war-itis,” meaning it was too focused
on potential needs for future conflict. But the new guidance shows it is
now OK to talk about potential future wars, said the former service
official, noting there are more threats on the department’s mind.
Charges against Gates that he neglected the future are “a little
unfair,” a former Pentagon official said, noting Gates made key
decisions about the nuclear triad and the need for long-range strike
capabilities that addressed “anti-access and area-denial” threats. But
on Gates’ watch the department focused mostly on today’s wars, the
source said, noting that now DOD is increasing its attention on the
potential for war with countries such as China and Iran.
Some of DOD’s discussion with President Obama about “alternative
futures” — and what the military ought to be able to do in the years
ahead — centers on “continued instability in the Middle East [and] a
growing concern and a need for stability in the Asia-Pacific region,”
Mullen said last week.
DOD annually issues guidance on defense planning to steer development of
the armed services and defense agencies’ long-term investment plans. But
the Aug. 29 guidance is Panetta’s first DPG — and it comes as the
department faces hundreds of billions of dollars in budget cuts over the
next decade.
Panetta listed an array of national security challenges beyond the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan during a recent talk at National Defense
University.
“We’re involved in two wars; we’re in a NATO mission in Libya; we’re
confronting other threats from Iran and North Korea; we continue to be
in a war on terrorism; we’re fighting a concern about cyberattacks,
increasing cyberattacks here,” he said. “And we have rising powers —
nations like China and India and Brazil, not to mention Russia — that
we have to continue to look at in terms of their role in providing
stability in the world. And we’re facing resource constrictions, budget
constrictions now.”
Last year, Gates issued a classified document called the Defense
Planning and Programming Guidance (DPPG) to lay out the department’s
priority missions, force-sizing construct, major force-planning
assumptions and key capabilities to size and shape the future force.
Panetta’s DPG addresses such issues with “varying degrees of depth and
success,” the former service official said. A Pentagon official said
Panetta’s guidance omits programming instructions, which were not ready
for inclusion. It is difficult to give precise programming instructions
when the FY-13 budget topline remains undetermined due to overarching
deliberations about slashing the federal deficit, said a second military
official.
Defense officials maintain they are developing a strategy to inform the
planned defense-spending cuts. The former service official said
Panetta’s guidance “does not provide what any serious student of
strategy would consider a strategy,” but it does include “big-picture
muscle movements”
that suggest “echoes or shadows” of a new strategy.
Current and former defense officials said the department’s long-term
strategy for investment and budget cuts remains a work in progress that
is being debated. The part of the debate concerning “anti-access and
area-denial” threats is not whether to boost investment in countering
such weapons but rather “how much more, how quickly and in lieu of
what,” said the former Pentagon official.
Capitol Hill has both proponents and skeptics of AirSea Battle. “The
AirSea Battle advocates clearly want a defense establishment oriented on
the higher end and air/naval forces for dealing with anti-access/area
denial,” said a congressional source. “But they seem to ignore, and no
one is asking, the ‘then what?’ question. Kicking in the door is one
thing, but then what?”
Wasn’t it [former Secretary of State Gen. Colin] Powell who said, ‘you
break it, you bought it’?”
A fundamental choice
Earlier this year, Gates predicted the department would have to choose
between putting a new emphasis on high-end threats and continuing to
focus more on counterinsurgency operations.
“One of the fundamental choices is, do we focus our force structure on
being able to deal with high-end sophisticated threats and then assume
that that will handle all lesser included cases?” he said May 24 at the
American Enterprise Institute. “Or do we continue to emphasize what
we’ve been emphasizing in the last few years, which is counterinsurgency
and counterterrorism, with less emphasis on the high-end threats? You
know, that’s the analysis that we’re doing.”
Mullen said last week the U.S. military is a “heavy counterinsurgency
force right now, and we’ve got to rebalance that.” Similarly, last month
he called for the military to “renew” its training as a force with a
“broad spectrum of capabilities.” In the process of becoming “the best
counterinsurgency force in the world,” the U.S. military has had to
“sacrifice some . . .
training and capabilities in other areas . . . of what I would call our
. .
. multispectral capability that we’ve got to have,” Mullen said in an
Aug. 1 talk with troops in Mosul, Iraq.
Earlier this year in congressional testimony, Mullen said the Pentagon’s
future force would likely “involve a greater emphasis on [intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance], command and control, long-range
strike, area denial, undersea warfare, missile defense, and cyber
capabilities.” He also noted the military “must continue to adapt some
of our systems and tactics to counter anti-access and area-denial
strategies, which may involve both the most advanced and simplest
technologies.”
A retired senior military official said phrases like “major power war,”
and “high-end asymmetric threat,” seem to be “code for China because no
other major power, including Russia, has significant potential to
affect” the United States. North Korea, Iran and Venezuela “are surely
not major powers,” the source said, noting India, Brazil, Japan and the
European Union are “non-threatening excepting commercial competition.”
A recent Pentagon report to Congress warns that China is “pursuing a
variety of air, sea, undersea, space counterspace, information warfare
systems and operational concepts” to achieve anti-access and area-denial
capabilities.
The report cites China’s “sustained effort to develop the capability to
attack, at long ranges, military forces that might deploy or operate
within the Western Pacific.” On June 3 in Singapore, Gates said DOD is
“investing significant sums of money” to address the long-term challenge
posed by such high-end threats.
DOD is also concerned that the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah,
armed fighters in Afghanistan or other potential foes could wield guided
munitions that are simple compared to high-end Chinese systems but still
amount to deadly anti-access and area-denial weapons. In Singapore,
Gates referenced Hezbollah’s possession of “anti-ship cruise missiles
with a range of more than 65 miles that potentially puts our and other
ships at risk off the coast of Lebanon.”
“While Iran is unlikely to initiate or launch a preemptive attack, it
could attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz temporarily, threaten U.S.
forces and regional allies with missiles and employ terrorist surrogates
worldwide,”
Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Ron Burgess told the
Senate Armed Services Committee in March.
The Naval Research Advisory Committee recently launched a new study on
Marine Corps capabilities for countering precision weapons. “The intel
community is seeing greater proliferation of relatively inexpensive
Guided Rockets, Artillery, Mortars, and Missiles (G-RAMM), which can
pose a great threat to future Marine operations,” states the draft terms
of reference for the study. “This threat is yet another example of cheap
technologies with the potential to have a huge impact on future
missions, much like the [improvised explosive devices] have had on
recent ones.”
But the near-term battle facing the department could have more to do
with budgetary infighting. Even as Mullen last week proposed dividing
DOD’s budget differently among the armed services to better posture the
military for tomorrow’s challenges, he cautioned institutional
resistance could make such change “very difficult” to accomplish. He
warned against letting spending cuts devolve into a parochial squabble
for resources among the armed services.
Although it is healthy for the services to see the world in different
ways, DOD must be “careful” in its choices, he said. Allowing friction
among the services to dominate the budget review — which aims to cut
“more than $450 billion” over a decade — could “set back” jointness and
readiness, he warned. “Frankly, our record of change without squabble is
checkered at best,” Mullen said. “We didn’t do this well in the ’70s. We
didn’t do it well in the 90s.” But failing to be “thoughtful” about the
strategy could leave the department with the “wrong force at the wrong
time,” he said.
Panetta’s guidance is not the endgame of the FY-13 budget process but
rather an opening salvo in a budget debate tethered closely to efforts
to slash the massive federal debt. Much depends on whether the
congressional supercommitee this fall triggers huge additional defense
cuts by failing to achieve prescribed deficit savings. That outcome
could break the Pentagon by hollowing out the military, senior defense
officials argue.
theater security decision making 