The Chinese navy’s hidden European past
Published on by Iskander Rehman
Today, European Geostrategy publishes its fourth Long Post, which is by Iskander Rehman, who is the Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This Long Post looks at the history of three European powers – Rome, France and Russia – before asking what their pasts can tell us about China’s maritime future. It argues that European history offers examples for Beijing’s sea-based future trajectory, and shows how a potentially more assertive Chinese naval capability in the decades ahead might be constrained. It also counsels that Europeans must not neglect their own naval power, lest they fade away like the European powers of the past.
• Please click here to download the fourth Long Post.
I like most of this, but I do have some issues with a few of the comparisons you are making. In the Rome/Carthage section you seem to imply that because Rome was able to match the Carthaginians at sea, that the Chinese might similarly challenge the US. While I think you hit the nail on the head with comparisons of government types and general outlooks you overlooked the fact that Rome was actively at war with Carthage while during this time period. Matching their enemies in combat was a top priority. China and the US are not, and will likely not be, anything more than political and economic rivals and so the motivation for that level of economic and technological commitment probably doesn’t exist in China. Also Rome had many advantages over Carthage that China doesn’t possess against the US. Rome was consolidated on the Italian peninsula while Carthage was spread from Spain to Libya and had to spread its assets over a much wider area of operations. Rome may never actually have equaled the Carthaginian navy but because of its strategic location it could focus its assets much more easily.
In your France section you state “France worked hard to redirect the attention of its diversified people towards common external threats, most notably that which it perceived as emanating from Germany on its eastern flank”. Where is China’s similar motivation? The Chinese are well aware that any threat to their national security from an external force short of massive aerial bombardment is ludicrous. The only states remotely capable of being a military threat to China are Russia, who lacks the interest, and the ability due to the logistic hell that is Russian Siberia, and India. The latter’s threat is largely diminished by the Himalaya’s which prevent any large scale operations to the south. Simply put, China has no equivalent to 19th century Germany, a large powerful external threat. America is too far away, too unaggressive, and simply too democratic to be a threat worthy of increases in military spending that would make their navy any sort of challenge to the Americans.
Your Russian section however, was right on the nose. I think any Chinese flirtation with naval power would simply have to mirror Russia’s. Like Russia and England, China knows it cannot ever compete with the United States on a global maritime stage. Like Russia however, it can concentrate its forces for limited objectives where its navy can be supported by the army and air forces. Any action against North Korea would be a good comparison to the Great Northern war where the Russian navy, while effective was confined to limited objectives in the Baltic in support of the Army.
Is it possible that China could have a rapid, effective, naval expansion program? Of course. They have the resources and they are more than safe enough to divert those resources from other sectors. What I don’t see is the motivation for such a plan. Massive naval expansion would only serve to antagonize the United States while still never being able to achieve any major strategic objectives. The ability to, for instance, credibly threaten Taiwan would require a huge build up which would, in turn, create the impetus for a similar move by the Americans, who can, for the foreseeable future, continue to remain leaps and bounds ahead of China in naval technology, strategy, and gross assets.
Hi Ben,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments-it’s refreshing to get feedback from a history buff. When it comes to your assessment of the current geopolitical climate, however, I have to disagree on several counts.
First of all, you understimate the absolute centrality of the United States in China’s threat perception. Chinese naval strategists in particular perceive the United States and its allies as hostile entities determined to put an end to what they perceive as being a formerly humiliated great civilization’s legitimate rise on the world stage. China’s defense expenditures ( and more specifically its naval expenditures) have been rising exponentially, most often in double-digit terms, throughout the past two decades. Moreover its force structure is increasingly geared towards offsetting the US’s power projection capabilites through the implementaion of an increasingly offensive sea denial strategy. The latter is largely reliant on shore-based missile and rocket forces, submarines, air and ship-launched cruise missiles, and mine warfare. China’s entire defense posture is geared towards targeting what it perceives as being the US’s critical weaknesses. In this regard, I agree with you when you say that China would need to rely on the support of air and ground forces in order to dilute the US’s comparative naval advantage-indeed this forms the central component of its anti-access strategy.
Second, the advantages that you mentioned regarding Rome vis a vis Carthage ( in terms of interior lines of communication) also apply to today’s China, which has vastly expanded its rail and road infrastructure ,which allows it to rapidly disperse, reinforce, or dissimulate its assets. The United States, much like Carthage, has bases sprinkled across areas as diverse and far-ranging as Korea, Japan, Guam and Diego Garcia, and would need time in order to swivel its forces from ocean to ocean (from the Indian to Pacific oceans or vice versa) in the event of a crisis. This is why I and others have been arguing for a more large-scale US presence in Australia, which is strategically placed at the seam of the Indo-Pacific.
Third, the fact that the United States is democratic does not dilute in any way its “threat value” in Chinese eyes. The United States was a democracy when its soldiers were combating PLA soldiers during the Korean war, during which General MacArthur also lobbied in favor of preemptive nuclear strikes on Chinese soil. China’s mistrust of America’s intentions is almost pathological ( Andrew Scobell’s recent article in Foreign Affairs provides a useful overview of the visceral nature of this sentiment) and borders on paranoia. For instance, most Chinese commentators are convinced that the United States deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, even though it is clear that the bombing, while tragic, was accidental.
Finally, you ask whether it is possible if China could have a rapid and vigorous naval expansion program. I would argue that this has been the case for the past decade,at least. Naval War College Professor Andrew Erickson provides a good synthesis in the latest edition of Strategic Asia. Unfortunately for Taiwan, most analyses of the Cross-Strait balance are decidely more somber than a few years ago..China’s continued deployment of short-range ballistic missiles facing Taiwan, when combined with the growth and rapid modernization of its air force, mean that there is a risk that China could enact a crippling first strike on Taiwan, maybe before the United States could respond, thus presenting it with a “fait accompli”. This is why people such as my friend Jim Holmes have been arguing that Taiwan needs to do “a China on China” by forgoing its pursuit of conventional parity and choosing, instead, to pursue asymmetric strategies revolving around missile and subsurface warfare.
Thanks again for your comments and hopefully we can discuss this in person one day!
Iskander,
When you talk about the “absolute centrality of the United States in China’s threat perception” are you primarily referring to our policy of defending Taiwan? I don’t have the expertise to say what the Chinese think of us in terms of policy standpoint. I am not, and probably never will be a diplomat or policy expect. What I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty is that China is not in a position now, or in the near future, to do anything of a militarily aggressive nature. The US global presence is too strong for them to attempt anything large scale without massive retaliation. I think you make a good point though about their ability to take Taiwan before the US could respond and then force the impetus on us to escalate or retaliate for a conflict that was already over. I also wonder what you mean by “critical US weaknesses”
We are, in my view, unfortunately, in the age of “limited conflicts” now which adds a whole dimension to these things that I do not profess to be an expert in by any means. In any sort of straight-up fight though China is woefully unequipped to handle the US at sea or in the air unless very close to Chinese bases.
That said, it puts the US in a tough spot. Do we expend resources to try and defend Taiwan (in my view, the PRC has a legitimate claim there) I think if the Chinese push in that direction it will inevitably end in a cold-war style arms race. In that scenario I think the US is at a distinct advantage. In my view China cannot continue to oppress its own population indefinitely, especially while conducting a massive military build-up. It didn’t work for the Soviets and I can’t see it working now. Of course that still leaves us with short term problems. Shifting assets towards China could be seen as provocation, I don’t know.
Yeah I would love to be able to talk in person. Maybe some graduate program will appreciate my genius and I can get out of here and put my interests to work. Who knows.