11 minute read
China Looks Seaward
Strategic Vision vol. 11, no. 52 (May, 2022) China Looks Seaward
Beijing shaping maritime strategy to safeguard strategic Chinese interests
Advertisement
Hon-min Yau
Construction site of the Magampura port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka. The Chinese company CMPort owns a 70 percent stake and a 99-year lease on the port.
photo: Dhammika Heenpella
The geopolitical pressure that had built up in the Donbas region since 2014 finally erupted with Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The war triggered a tectonic shift in global security and created one of the largest refugee migrations in modern-day Europe. However, by the end of April 2022, the events of the war had deviated from Russia’s original wish for a quick and decisive Blitzkrieg-style operation and had turned into another 21st century war of attrition. While much of the explanation for this development centered around the leadership of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the iron will of the Ukrainian people to defend themselves, this article highlights the importance of supply chains in this conflict and how this single factor can be used to illuminate China’s two-ocean strategy in the IndoPacific region.
One of the distinct features of the 2022 RussiaUkraine War is the collective effort of Western sanctions on Russia. By 8 April, 2022, the European Union had imposed five sanctions on Russia. This action expelled Russian banks from the global financial SWIFT system and banned Russian personnel and entities from operating in the European market. Most significantly, the measures also denied Russian air carriers overflight of European Union (EU) airspace and access to EU airports, as well as banning all Russian vessels from accessing EU ports. While these sanctions may have had only a limited effect in changing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision on whether or not to continue his aggression, they have had a destructive effect on Russia’s domestic economy and reduced the resources available for the Russian war engine.
Admiral Cecil Haney, former commander of the US Pacific Fleet, greets Admiral Wei Gang during a Chinese Navy visit to Pearl Harbor.
photo: Nardel Gervacio
Strategic intentions
When we put this observation in the context of East Asia, a similar challenge will be presented to China. With its high-profile military build-up and expansionist activities, China’s strategic intentions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea are apparent. Given that the most prosperous area of China is the southeast coastal region, which relies heavily on seaports to access global markets, a conflict over Taiwan, or in the South China Sea, could hinder China’s access to vital Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) and disrupt its logistics under direct pressure from the current US Indo-Pacific Strategy. What is China’s domestic security discourse regarding this concern? This article aims to fill a gap in the literature to understand China’s strategy for securing its logistics in the Indo-Pacific region during a conflict.
China’s two-ocean (Liang Yang Chu Hai) strategy provides insight into how leaders in Beijing think about keeping SLOCs and supply chains secure. In fact, long before the Russia-Ukraine war, then-President Hu Jintao had already noted the importance of securing supplies from South East Asia during periods of conflict. In 2003, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) worried that its SLOCs, mostly leading toward the Pacific Ocean, were in the first and second island chains, within the US sphere of influence. This presented a challenge to China’s expanding activities in the Pacific region. In addition, more than 80 percent of China’s energy supply came from foreign imports through the Strait of Malacca, a vulnerability that Hu termed “the Malacca Dilemma.” As the United States has a strong presence in the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean has become an essential alternative for China’s strategic survival. Therefore, Beijing needed to secure its ownership and control over the network of essential military and commercial facilities along its SLOCs, particularly in the Indian Ocean. International scholars labeled this China’s “string of pearls” strategy.
A closer examination of Beijing’s supply strategy reveals the original strategic intent of China’s push for energy security, which shifted in 2008 with the successful long-haul naval sailing to East Africa in the name of countering piracy. China’s strategic community pushed for the establishment of a two-ocean strategy to ensure national survival. These discussions envisioned China’s expansion of naval activity toward the Pacific Ocean as the result of its growing national power, and they argued that China should also expand its control over the important harbors or bases along the Indian Ocean. Most distinctly, Beijing should also invest in building land passages to connect important ports under its influence.
This development is based on the following strategic calculus. First, militarily, securing two passages will offer China a better strategic position from which to compete for the status of first-rate world power. Second, economically, securing two passages will reduce the risk of foreign disruptions to its economic development. Third, given that both Singapore and the Philippines have close relations with the United States, China could potentially be coerced by Western strategic leverage from sanctions, contested access to the sea, or even access-denial by a foreign military. Finally, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea could possibly increase the likelihood that access to SLOCs would be interrupted. Hence creating land channels with the Indian Ocean will mitigate foreign coercion in times of conflict in the South China Sea. Therefore, having an alternative access to the Indian Ocean without traversing through areas of US influence is extremely important for China.
By 2021, China’s navy already counted more than 355 vessels, which made it the largest navy in the world in terms of number of ships. However, China’s seaward-looking strategy seems different from the dominant sea power strategy proposed by Alfred Thayer Mahan, which emphasizes the importance of the fleet, choke points, and SLOCs. Instead, China’s two-ocean strategy could more likely have been influenced by Julian Corbett’s argument that pure navalism will not secure ocean supremacy, and that a maritime strategy could be successful only with the support of joint operations from land elements. In fact, scholars have talked about how China’s establishment of Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) capability is meant to secure its activities and resist foreign intervention in the western Pacific. This A2/AD strategy is certainly a combination of sea expansion with the support of the power from land. Likewise, the logic behind China’s Indian Ocean strategy has been very much influenced by Corbett’s thinking.
The Port of Honiara in the Solomon Islands, seen here, may be developed into a dual-use military facility by China.
photo: Jenny Scott
Three Chinese naval vessels at a port of call at Sydney Harbour, Australia.
photo: John
String of Pearls
The conventional String of Pearls conceptualization often focuses on China’s seizure and control of important harbors from Gwadar to Hambantota; from Chittagong to Kyaukpyu. The problem with this argument is that the SLOCs would still need to go through US-friendly choke points in the Malacca Strait, as well as the disputed and troublesome waters of the South China Sea. This challenge would remain, regardless of how influential China’s development of naval power becomes. A pure Mahanian view would not secure China’s supply chains.
Hence, to break away from this geographical constraint, China’s two-ocean strategy emphasizes the need to establish Lines of Communication (LOC) via land to connect the southwest part of China with the ports mentioned above in order to circumvent the environmental challenge in the control of the choke point in South East Asia. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been geared toward developing a China-Pakistan, a China-Myanmar, and a China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridor (CICPEC). China’s two-ocean strategy for the Indian Ocean also suggests the importance of synergy between land and sea. This strategy could encircle India by coming from critical ports in the Indian Ocean and the land corridors mentioned above.
F/A-18E Super Hornets fly in formation during an in-flight change-of-command ceremony over the USS Abraham Lincoln.
photo: Julia Brockman
Such a manner of strategic development has the following implications. First, given that the LOC via land toward Gwadar in Pakistan is close to the troublesome tribal areas, and connects with China’s unstable Xinjiang Province, it will be too costly and risky to rely heavily on this corridor. China is working to develop a solid grip on ports in the CICPEC area. For example, media reports have suggested that Beijing is diversifying the risk by building the Ream Naval Base, located just outside its close ally, Cambodia’s, port city of Sihanoukville.
Second, China established a closer relationship with Myanmar’s unpopular military rulers. Myanmar has been beleaguered by Western countries because of its treatment of the Rohingya ethnic group and the 2021 military coup d’état. China has become the major non-Western investor to advance its national development. From a security perspective, Myanmar shares a 2,204 kilometer-long border with China, and its strategic harbor, Kyaukpyu, offers an alternative land bridge via which China can access the Indian Ocean. In this case, China invested considerable resources in strengthening its military cooperation with Myanmar. China supplies over 90 percent of Myanmar’s military vehicles and provides additional military equipment in the form of missiles, radar, naval vessels, and aircraft. The CCP has always been very accommodating in winning Myanmar’s support. Third, China’s focus on the Indian Ocean stems from is security concerns in a time of intensifying international competition. Most pressure comes from the US-dominated Pacific Ocean. Devising a strategy to secure access to the Indian Ocean would provide alternative access to supply chains and ensure its survival. However, China’s strategy in the Indian Ocean will not be a purely maritime military strategy, but one that combines political, economic, and military means coming both from sea and land. The continued effects of COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine War continue to disrupt world supply chains. On top of this development, the nature of the CCP’s domestic rhetoric continues to center around President Xi Jinping’s ambitions, such as the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and “bringing China to the world stage.” All of these developments fuel China’s ambitious expansion and leave very little space for the CCP to concede ground for issues it views as its core interests. Hence, the security challenges that China poses to South Asia require a careful strategic response and can longer be ignored. This may also explain why China has been so assertive in recent years regarding the disputed territories in the northern part of India, including the Doklam and Galwan River valleys. Therefore, China would still have complicated relations with India even though both have a similar stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Finally, China’s intentions in the Indian Ocean are no longer about “sea control,” but are more practically about how to exploit it. The military aspect of the string of pearls framework was too centered on the “means” of the strategy, without digesting the implications of China’s “ends,” i.e., the ultimate goal of China’s strategic intention is to secure its external access to supplies. This is also to say that Beijing’s strategic calculations in the Indian Ocean are not only ideological but practical. Amid the lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine war, this is a survival-driven decision for China.
As exemplified by the Russia-Ukraine War in March 2022, Russia’s failure to secure LOCs to Kyiv resulted in a shortage of resources to fuel operations and limited the progress of operations around Kyiv. Likewise, the mountainous region between India and China was considered an obstacle to China’s advancement toward the south, but today its seafaring strategic outlook and intentions to secure an LOC will naturally interpret this geographical feature as a strategic opportunity to exploit the sea passage provided by the Indian Ocean. China continues to invest in securing harbors on the coastline of the Indian Ocean; however, such a development will not only be for the enhancement of its future naval capabilities but also for practical diversification in securing an LOC in order to sustain its national survival. China’s future collaborations with Pakistan and the authoritarian regimes in South East Asia, namely Myanmar and Cambodia, will play significant roles in its two-ocean strategy, and these power dynamics will inevitably determine its future relations with countries in South Asia.
Soldiers take part in Yudh Abhyas, an exercise that enhances the joint capabilities of the US and Indian army through training and cultural exchange.
photo: Samuel Northrup
Dr. Hon-min Yau is associate professor and director of Graduate Institute of International Security (GIIS), College of International and National Defense Affairs (INDAC), ROC National Defense University. He can be reached
