PIRACY : BEFORE THE SOMALI THREAT: PIRACY IN THE ANCIENT INDIAN OCEAN

SOURCE:
The Journal Hakluyt Society
ociety

14

 

  BEFORE THE SOMALI THREAT:                                       PIRACY
   IN THE ANCIENT INDIAN OCEAN
            Pierre Schneider
GOOGLE/CLICK TO READ THE 'PDF' FILE http://www.hakluyt.com/PDF/Schneider_piracy.pdf

Competition In the Indian Ocean

SOURCE:http://www.cfr.org/regional-security/competition-indian-ocean/p37201

Competition In the Indian Ocean

Author: Eleanor Albert, Online Writer/Editor
Updated: May 19, 2016

Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images

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Introduction

The Indian Ocean is the world's third largest body of water and has become a growing area of competition between China and India. The two regional powers' moves to exert influence in the ocean include deep-water port development in littoral states and military patrols. Though experts say the probability of military conflict between China and India remains low, escalated activities (such as port development and military exercises) and rhetoric could endanger stability in a critical region for global trade flows. But the diverse nontraditional security challenges in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) also offer areas of potential collaboration for China and India, as well as other regional actors.

What is the importance of the Indian Ocean?

The Indian Ocean covers at least one fifth of the world's total ocean area and is bounded by Africa and the Arabian Peninsula (known as the western Indian Ocean), India's coastal waters (the central Indian Ocean), and the Bay of Bengal near Myanmar and Indonesia (the eastern Indian Ocean). It provides critical sea trade routes that connect the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia with the broader Asian continent to the east and Europe to the west. A number of the world's most important strategic chokepoints, including the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca through which 32.2 millions of barrels of crude oil and petroleum are transported per day—more than 50 percent of the world's maritime oil trade—are found in the Indian Ocean Region, which itself is believed to be rich with energy reserves. Nearly 40 percent (PDF) of the world's offshore petroleum is produced in the Indian Ocean, coastal beach sands and offshore waters host heavy mineral deposits, and fisheries are increasingly important for both exports and domestic consumption.

 

Why is the Indian Ocean a source of competition?

China and India are dependent on energy resources transported via the secure sealanes in the Indian Ocean to fuel their economies. India imports nearly 80 percent of its energy, mostly oil from the Middle East, and is due to overtake Japan as the world's third largest energy consumer (behind China and the United States). According to a U.S. Department of Defense report, 84 percent (PDF) of China's imported energy resources passed through Strait of Malacca from the Indian Ocean in 2012. As Beijing and New Delhi press to maintain economic growth, their dependency on the safe transport of resources will likely intensify. China's growing global influence and India's rapid economic rise have heightened the ocean's strategic value. Meanwhile, the United States' rebalance to Asia—shifting from a foreign policy dominated by the Middle East to one more centered on Asia—has also been a contributing factor elevating concern over Indian Ocean security. Diverse security challenges affect the region ranging from natural disasters to concerns over energy security, piracy, and military posturing. 

How are China and India competing in the Indian Ocean?

Both countries have developed initiatives to bolster infrastructure and other connections in the region, which the World Bank describes as among the "least economically integrated." Competition between Beijing and New Delhi is not necessarily overt, but each country is seeking to strengthen ties with smaller regional states to secure their respective security and economic interests.

Beijing's regional vision, backed by $40 billion of pledged investment, outlines its One Belt, One Road plan—combining the revitalization of ancient land-based trade routes, the Silk Road Economic Belt, with a Maritime Silk Road. China's ties with regional states have deepened, including the influx of Chinese capital into construction projects in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Since launching counterpiracy operations in 2009, Beijing has become increasingly active in the region. China has also undertaken efforts to modernize its military, particularly its naval deployment capabilities to protect overseas interests like personnel, property, and investments. Experts also argue that Beijing's forays into what is at times described as India's neighborhood are driven by China's excess capacity challenges—incentivizing Chinese firms out of domestic markets to compete in and open new markets abroad.

For its part, India sees itself as the natural preeminent regional power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has doubled-down on fostering stronger diplomatic, economic, and security ties with IOR maritime states as a means to strengthen India's economy, establish its role a driver of regional growth , and simultaneously diminish China's growing appeal, writes CFR's Alyssa Ayres.


"It is India's neighbourhood that holds the key (PDF) to its emergence as a regional and global power," writes former Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran. Though Beijing deflects claims of hegemonic aspirations, it identifies security in the IOR as a primary concern for Chinese "core interests." In 2015, a white paper charting China's military strategy indicated a shift of People's Liberation Army Navy to focus on both offshore water defense and open seas protection. Chinese behavior suggests that Beijing seeks to establish a persistent regional maritime presence. It now boasts a semipermanent naval presence through its counterpiracy activities in the Indian Ocean and has more aggressively asserted itself in the Pacific with extensive patrols and land reclamation projects in disputed waters.

"It is India's neighbourhood that holds the key to its emergence as a regional and global power."—Former Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran

China's ambitions in the region have been described by many scholars by the "string of pearls" metaphor, which holds that China is taking on economic and investment projects with Indian Ocean states to secure ports or places where its military forces could set up naval facilities or at the very least, refueling and repair stations. Chinese experts dismiss this, claiming that China seeks access, not bases, for economic gain. C. Raja Mohan, director of Carnegie India, a regional center of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment think tank, argues that as rising powers, China and India's pursuit of partnerships with smaller regional states is inevitable. "Everyone is playing this game,” he says. “Bases is going to be the name of the game in the Indian Ocean, and that game is going to be pretty attractive in the coming years."


Still, "maritime competition between China and India is still nascent and should not be overblown," cautions CFR's Daniel S. Markey in a Contingency Planning Memorandum. Still, he writes that a "tit-for-tat politico-military escalation" is possible in the larger Indo-Pacific, a region spanning both the Indian and Pacific oceans.
 

What fuels China-India tensions?

China-India relations are fraught, colored by historical disputes and the perceived threat to India of China's rise. Tensions have persisted despite overtures by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Much of the friction stems from a longstanding dispute along a 2,400-mile border in India's Arunachal Pradesh and China's Tibet and the legacy of the 1962 Sino-Indian War along the Himalayan border.


The expansion of a Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean has heightened India's concerns. Beijing says its activities are commercially motivated and intended to better protect its interests and people abroad. However, Brahma Chellaney of the Center for Policy Research (CPR), an independent Indian think tank, argues a ramped up Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere is consistent with Xi Jinping's intention of making maritime power central to achieving Chinese dominance in Asia.


While China's aims are disputed, both sides continue to ramp up military capabilities in the ocean region. China continues to deploy greater numbers of naval forces to support counterpiracy operations in the western Indian Ocean, and invests and sells arms, including tanks, frigates, missiles, and radar, to India's neighbors. Beijing is currently restructuring its military: Xi Jinping announced in September 2015 that the People's Liberation Army would cut 300,000 of its troops to redistribute resources to sea and air capabilities. As China adapts its military force to meet its global ambitions, its posturing has grown bolder. In October 2015, China finalized the sale of eight submarines to Pakistan, and in recent years, Chinese submarines have docked at the Sri Lankan port of Colombo and the Pakistani port of Karachi. More still, Beijing's land reclamation efforts and assertive behavior in the Pacific could bleed into the region, suggest the U.S. Naval War College's Andrew Erickson and Kevin Bond.

"Bases is going to be the name of the game in the Indian Ocean, and that game is going to be pretty attractive in the coming years."—C. Raja Mohan, director, Carnegie India

India is also reinforcing its regional maritime presence. "Activating partnerships and expanding capabilities in the Indian Ocean has been central to our quest for security," said Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar at the launch of Carnegie India in April 2016. The country has vowed to spend billions to build up its navy, including anti-submarine capabilities, has sent vessels to visit the South China Sea, and called for freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes as part of its Act East policy. The construction of military bases, modernized equipment and fleets, new maritime assets, and the expansion of security ties are all part of New Delhi's push to assert itself as the region's leader. Modi initiated the first bilateral India-Australia exercises and India participated in multilateral naval games in the Bay of Bengal with the United States, Australia, and Japan. David Brewster of Australian National University says there is little doubt that despite India's traditional principle of nonalignment, outreach to the United States, Australia, and Japan are calculated moves that could play a significant role in counterbalancing China.

What other countries have strategic interests in the IOR?

Small regional states, such as Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Seychelles and Sri Lanka, are recipients of both Chinese and Indian aid and investment, primarily for transport and infrastructure development. The majority of their foreign policy ties are determined by what deals can be made to help them meet their national development goals, says Nilanthi Samaranayake of Virginia-based CNA, a nonprofit research and analysis organization.


Global powers from outside of the region also have an interest in maintaining the ocean’s security. The United States operates a naval support facility—Diego Garcia—on UK-leased territory in the central Indian Ocean, while France maintains a presence in the region from Reunion, its Indian Ocean island outpost. Australia has a modern naval force operating in the ocean, and the IOR is increasingly featured (PDF) in defense, national security, and maritime strategies developed in Canberra.

What are transnational concerns in the ocean?

Despite the rise in competition, multilateral cooperation involving China, India, and other states, takes place on issues including piracy, disaster relief, and drug smuggling. The following areas show potential for expanded cooperation:

-- Counterpiracy. Piracy has been costly to ocean-faring traders but global and regional responses have shown success. Oceans Beyond Piracy, a Colorado-based non-profit, estimates that the economic cost of piracy off the Somali Coast amounted to $2.3 billion in 2014, a drop from the estimated $5.7-$6.1 billion loss (PDF) two years prior.

Source: UNITAR-UNOSAT

Counterpiracy efforts near the Gulf of Aden have been the most successful manifestation of regional cooperation. More than eighty countries, organizations, and industry groups participate in operations in the IOR under the auspices of the ad hoc, voluntary Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS), created in January 2009 in response to UN Security Council Resolution 1851 (PDF) on Somali piracy and armed robbery at sea. Since military cooperation began, the volume of attacks has shrunk. Yet experts warn that pirates have turned to more sophisticated equipment (PDF) and if naval pressure in the western Indian Ocean is reduced, pirate activity would rise again.
China and India carry out anti-piracy activities independently, deploying naval vessels to escort merchant ships, provide protection, conduct rescue operations, and confiscate contraband. In April, China dispatched its twentieth naval escort task force to the Gulf of Aden. Meanwhile, India has prevented forty piracy attempts and developed an online registration service for merchants to request Indian naval escorts.

-- Search and Rescue. Another recent example of cooperation was the search effort for the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014. At the height of operations, twenty-six countries, including China and India, contributed to the search mission. Wreckage believed to be from the flight was discovered in July 2015.


-- Disaster Relief. There is room for growth on humanitarian aid and disaster relief cooperation. After the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, governments, including Australia, France, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the UK, and the United States, participated in extensive relief and rehabilitation efforts (PDF). Separately, China disbursed (PDF) more than $62.2 million in aid, shipped supplies, and dispatched medical and rescue teams. More than a decade later, the IOR's vulnerability to natural disasters and the subsequent effects of climate change could provide impetus for more extensive collaboration.

-- Fisheries. Consumers in Indo-Pacific countries on average obtain 20 to 50 percent (PDF) of their animal protein from fish, and industrial fishing is an important export for smaller countries in the IOR. Regional players identify overfishing and environmental degradation as serious risks to sustainable economic development and food security, but mechanisms to establish sustainable fisheries have not been effective. The Stimson Center's David Michel blames (PDF) challenges to cooperation on the region's existing security architecture: the majority of institutions, such as the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, only operate at a sub-regional level or focus on specific species.
 

What are the prospects for improved regional governance?

Experts say there is a growing need for an effective regional security architecture, similar to extant mechanisms among major powers in the East and South China seas, to address the IOR's diverse challenges. Regional multilateral organizations, such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), which facilitates the exchange of military views to enhance communication and transparency across the region's naval forces, do exist. However, experts say IOR members must undergo an extensive region-building project for countries to be willing to act together more effectively.


China and India have expressed eagerness to assume greater responsibility (PDF) in policing maritime global commons and to be recognized as major powers. China's activities are likely to expand in conjunction with its One Belt, One Road initiative, but this does not have to come at India's expense, say some experts. "India is going to have to come to terms with China's entry into the Indian Ocean," states CNA's Samaranayake. New Delhi could also benefit from partnering with Beijing to integrate the region. Broader initiatives like the BRICS Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are also pulling India into to a larger leadership role alongside China.


The biggest challenge to creating coordinated effective action across the Indian Ocean is the lack of institutions of governance that cover the whole space, says CFR's Alyssa Ayres. "It may sound mundane, but institutionalized organizations with a regular diplomatic calendar and senior officials meeting to work on an agenda drive processes of consultation and action."
This Backgrounder is part of a CFR project on the New Geopolitics of China, India, and Pakistan, supported in part by a generous grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

Additional Resources

This 2014 report (PDF) by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies explores the looming great game in the Indian Ocean.

The map of Asia is being reimagined, from the framework of the Asia-Pacific region into the larger construct of the Indo-Pacific, writes Rory Metcalf of the Australia-based Lowy Institute.

This Stimson Center report (PDF) entitled "Sea Change: Evolving Maritime Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific Region" identifies the region's challenges and opportunities for enhanced cooperation.

This CFR Backgrounder outlines competing visions to revive ancient Silk Road trade routes to connect Asia and Europe.

The Australian National University's David Brewster analyzes New Delhi's ambitions for strategic leadership in the Indian Ocean Region.

Journalist Wade Shapard investigates a major Chinese-led port project in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

More on this topic from CFR

• Armed Confrontation Between China and India
  Author: Daniel S. Markey, Adjunct Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia

 

• The Shanghai Cooperation Organization
  Author: Eleanor Albert, Online Writer/Editor

 

• China-Korea Relations: New Sanctions, Old Dilemmas
  Authors: Scott A. Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy, and See-won Byun, George Washington University

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SOURCE:http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2015/04/mil-150409-sputnik02.htm?_m=3n%2e002a%2e1389%2eka0ao00b2h%2e19xa
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/south-china-sea.htm

Beijing Details Plans for Artificial Islands in                          South China Sea

Sputnik News

In-Depth Coverage

 

 

 

09Apr 2015



China revealed detailed plans on Thursday for the islands it is creating in the disputed South China Sea, saying that construction will not only bolster military defense, but will also provide civilian services for neighboring countries.


Speaking at a news briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the building efforts in the Spratly archipelago, one of the largest in the South China Sea, would help address the risk of typhoons in an area frequented by trading ships, and provide aid and services to neighboring countries.


'We are building shelters, aids for navigations, search and rescue as well as marine meteorological forecasting services, fishery services and other administrative services so as to provide the necessary services to China, neighboring countries and individual vessels sailing the South China Sea,' she said.
The announcement came shortly after the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, released satellite images of China's building efforts on the Mischief Reef of the Spratly archipelago. The images, which showed Chinese ships dredging sand onto the reef, fueled the criticism of already alarmed US officials and other claimants.
China claims most of the South China Sea, and is currently locked in overlapping territorial disputes with the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, and Malaysia. $5 trillion in shipping passes through the highly contested area each year.


While the US is not a party to the dispute itself, Washington is concerned about China's growing influence in the region and the rapidity with which Beijing is expanding land across the archipelago. Other countries involved in the territorial dispute have used similar techniques to gain ground, although China's has been the most rapid. Military analysts at the Pentagon have also accused Beijing of attempting to create "facts in the water" as a means of bolstering sovereignty claims over competing countries.


US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, speaking to reporters in Tokyo, warned that Beijing's actions in the South China Sea could lead to 'dangerous incidents.'


'It is not just an American concern,' he said, 'But a concern of almost every country in the entire region.'


The Philippines, a US treaty ally, also claims ownership of Mischief Reef and regards the area as its exclusive economic zone. Along with Vietnam, it filed a diplomatic protest with China after it first noticed construction in February.


In a move that may be interpreted as a warning to Beijing, the Philippines and the US are set to begin joint military exercises on April 20. Although both countries have insisted the exercises are not intended to be a "show of force", they would fall in line with a series of assertive steps Washington has taken to counter China's growing influence in the region.


In February, the US launched its most advanced spy plane out of the Philippines to monitor the South China Sea. At the time, a spokesman for the Philippine military said that more surveillance planes were expected to be deployed out of the country. Earlier this month, two US fighter jets landed on Taiwan after China conducted military exercises over the Bashi Channel. While the Pentagon insisted the landing was due to technical problems, the timing of the incident indicated that Washington was sending a warning message to China about its growing influence.


The US has also been making efforts to bolster its future military presence in the region. Admiral Harry Harris Jr. of the US Pacific Fleet announced in a Naval Conference in Australia last month that the US Navy is preparing to shift 60% of its fleet to the Pacific by 2020, as well as expand its cooperation with India to conduct maritime exercises.
For their part, Chinese officials have maintained that the building work in the Spratly archipelago falls within the scope of their sovereignty.


'China adheres to the path of peaceful development and carries out a defensive national defense policy,' Spokeswoman Hua said during the press briefing. 'Maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea is in keeping with the development and security of China.'

Further Reading

South China Sea - 2014 Developments South China Sea - 2013 Developments South China Sea - 2012 Developments South China Sea - 2011 Developments South China Sea - 2010 Developments South China Sea - 2001-2009 References Limits in the Seas No. 143 - China: Maritime Claims in the South China Sea US Dept of State 05 Dec 2014 Chinese government denounces the South China Sea arbitration initiated by the Philippines People's Daily 07 Dec 2014 Chinese government's Position Paper on Matter of Jurisdiction in South China Sea Arbitration Initiated by Philippines People's Daily 07 Dec Resources The Huangyan Island Standoff South China Sea UNCLOS Arbitration

 

                                 South China Sea

 

 

South China Sea CHICOM Exclusive Economic Zone CHICOM Fishing Restrictions Paracel Islands South China Sea - Background Limits of the Continental Shelf Conflicting Claims Conflict Management Oil & Natural Gas Shipping Lanes Summary - Territorial Claims Summary - Exploration Disputes Summary - Military Clashes South China Sea - Names Maps Itu Aba [Taiping] Island References

Contestants China Brunei Indonesia Malaysia Philippines Taiwan Vietnam USofA

 





















Despite many Chinese diplomatic assurances to the contrary, Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea is an attempt to re-establish traditional Chinese hegemony in the region. China's strategy is taking concrete actions to solidify its claims in the South China Sea, and Chinese officials have underscored such perception.

China has asserted its claims for the South China Sea's rich mineral, oil and fishing grounds by increasing patrols and escorts for its fishing fleets. The ships’ excursions regularly raise regional tensions. ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Brunei in April 2013 agreed to pursue dialogue with China on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea. ASEAN wants a legally binding agreement to discourage such aggressive moves. It would replace a ten-year pledge by the claimants not to cause conflict, known as the Declaration of Conduct.


China is forging ahead with reclamation projects on at least seven tiny but hotly contested features in the South China Sea, posing a major challenge in the Philippines' international arbitration case against China. Since the beginning of 2015, satellite images of Chinese reclamation work in the Spratly Islands have shown shoals and reefs turning into artificial islands. By April 2015 major harbors that can dock military ships were nearly completed. So were several airstrips and at least three multistory buildings where bare outposts once stood.
China’s Foreign Ministry expressed serious concern on 27 March 2015 after the Philippines said it would resume repair and reconstruction works on disputed islands in the South China Sea. The ministry accused Manila of infringing on Chinese sovereignty. The Philippines had halted activities in 2014 over concerns about the effect on an international arbitration complaint filed against China.


In February 2014 the United States for the first time explicitly rejected the U-shaped, nine-dash line that China uses to assert sovereignty over nearly the whole South China Sea, experts say, strengthening the position of rival claimants and setting the stage for what could be an international legal showdown with Beijing. Washington had always said that it takes no position on competing territorial claims in the South China Sea among China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Brunei and opposes any use of force to resolve such issues.
The international community, he said, would welcome China to clarify or adjust its nine-dash line claim to bring it in accordance with the international law of the sea. "I think it is imperative that we be clear about what we mean when the United States says that we take no position on competing claims to sovereignty over disputed land features" in the region, Russel said.


Unlike other countries, Beijing's claim to up to about 90 percent of the South China Sea is not based on claims to particular islands or other features but on a historical map China officially submitted to the United Nations in 2009. The map contains a nine-dash line forming a U-shape down the east coast of Vietnam to just north of Indonesia and then continuing northwards up the west coast of the Philippines. The nine-dash line has been considered by many experts as incompatible with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which rejects historically based claims.

































Deng Xiaoping said "since we can't solve the South China Sea issue, we can leave it to the next generation which will be smarter." It is impossible to resolve the disputes over the South China Sea to the mutual benefit of all. Hypothetically, the claims of other littoral states could be reconciled by sectoral extensions of the Exclusive Economic Zones [as was done in the Gulf of Guinea]. China's claims cannot be so reconciled, since China claims vritually the entire South China Sea, which it views as internal waters.


China claims most of the South China Sea as either territorial water or Exclusive Economic Zone. China's claims cannot be reconciled with the claims of other states in the South China Sea area. The other states have conflicting claims that can be harmonized, the way there were compromises among the conflicting claims for the Gulf of Guinea in Africa. In the South China Sea, each of the littoral states claims areas that are immediately contiguous to their territorial seas, and it would be possible to "split the difference" on competing claims. But China claims the entirety of the South China Sea, so there is no possibility of compromise with China's position, since it is all or nothing.


In July 1977, when Deng Xiaoping emerged as China's leader following the death of Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese foreign minister, Huang Hua, confirmed that China's claim to the South China Sea was "non-negotiable" in the strongest terms.

At the same time he commented:
 "The territory of China reaches as far south as the James Shoals, near Malaysia's Borneo territory... I remember that while I was still a schoolboy, I read about those islands in the geography books. At that time, I never heard anyone say those islands were not China's... The Vietnamese claim that the islands belong to them. Let them talk that way. They have repeatedly asked us to negotiate with them on the issue; we have always declined to do so... As to the ownership of the islands, there are historical documents that can be verified. There is no need for negotiations since they originally belonged to China.... In this respect Taiwan's attitude is all right. At least they have some patriotism and would not sell out the islands..."


Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) coastal states have the right to establish sovereignty over adjacent waters out to a maximum of 12 nautical miles from the nation's coastline, including the coastline of offshore islands. These enclosed waters are known as the coastal state's territorial sea.


During the negotiations of the text of the 1982 UNCLOS military activities in the EEZ were a controversial issue. Some coastal States such as Bangladesh, Brazil, Cape Verde, Malaysia, Pakistan and Uruguay contended that other States cannot carry out military exercises or maneuvers in or over their EEZ without their consent. In June 1998, the PRC passed the "Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf Act." This Act created an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) with 200 nautical mile limits from its coastal baseline, and claimed the right, inter alia, to broadly undefined powers to enforce laws in the EEZ, "including security laws and regulations." Based on the Act, the PRC does not recognize the airspace above its EEZ as "international airspace" and has interfered with and protested US reconnaissance flights over its EEZ. China takes the position that all maritime data collection activities, including military intelligence and hydrographic collection activities, fall within the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea [UNCLOS] provisions for marine scientific research and therefore require coastal-state consent before they could be carried out in the two-hundred-nautical-mile EEZ.


The US has protested this sovereignty claim as a violation of international law numerous times since this law was passed. The US Government has long conducted a vigorous freedom of navigation program through which it has asserted its navigational rights in the face of what it has regarded as excessive claims by coastal states of jurisdiction over ocean space or international passages. When remonstrations and protestations are unavailing, elements of US military forces may sail into or fly over disputed regions for the purpose of demonstrating their right and determination to continue to do so.


ASEAN countries are outward-looking, especially in term of protecting their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). The convergence of interests in conflict areas such as the Spratly Islands affects the relationship among Malaysia, Philippines and Brunei with each claiming parts of the Spratlys. While armed conflicts among the countries of ASEAN overthe Spratly issue may be a remote possibility, it hascompounded historic frictions over unresolved territorial conflicts.


This will continue to be one of the driving force behind arms acquisition which is clearly demonstrated by the expansion of the naval and air forces of Malaysia. All the other ASEAN countries - except for Brunei - have expanded their naval and air arms to safeguard their maritime interests.



















 

The Maritime Silk Road and the PLA PART ONE & PART TWO AND Chinese Takeaway: Yemen Evacuation

Source:

http://www.jamestown.org/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=43676&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=e96d3de7eeba9e110185274a8ab5c4b4#.VSNEshEcSkQ

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=43748&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=25&cHash=2e8ad75f857ce0f14e852998345904d5#.VSNCThEcSkQ


http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/chinese-takeaway-yemen-evacuation/99/


  Chinese Takeaway: Yemen Evacuation
                                     & 
   The Maritime Silk Road and the PLA  

               PART ONE & PART TWO 

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For both China and India, which have significant populations living beyond borders, extricating compatriots from zones of conflict or natural disasters has become a recurring challenge.

                                                        By
                                                                                                     C Raja Mohan |

April 7, 2015

While India continues to evacuate its citizens from Yemen, China was quick to complete its operation last week. China had barely 600 people in Yemen to rescue. India had nearly 4,000 citizens in Yemen when the evacuation began last week amid the escalation of the conflict.

For both China and India, which have significant populations living beyond borders, extricating compatriots from zones of conflict or natural disasters has become a recurring challenge. Between 2006 and 2010, Beijing rescued nearly 6,000 citizens from troubled regions. In 2011 alone, China had to evacuate 48,000 citizens, most of them from Libya.

India had pulled out nearly 17,000 people from Libya in 2011. Since the NDA government came to power last summer, New Delhi has had to deal with similar situations in Iraq, Ukraine and now Yemen. Both Beijing and Delhi are under political pressure from below to act decisively and spare no expense in bringing their people back home. Beijing and Delhi have regularly tasked their armed forces with evacuation operations in different parts of the world.

 

More FromC. Raja Mohan
 

• Look again at the Middle East                       
• The great game folio: Pakistan in Yemen
• India and the civil war in Yemen         

The storylines in China and India begin to diverge somewhat from here.


In Beijing, the political leadership has begun to affirm that China’s national interests go beyond the borders and securing them is a top priority. Prime Minister Li Keqiang summed up the new dynamic last year: “As China becomes more open, the number of Chinese companies and citizens overseas is increasing.” Safeguarding the “legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and citizens,” Li added, is a major political priority for the party and government.

China’s defence establishment is translating this political commitment into appropriate policies and institutional capabilities. In Delhi, the political leaders turn to the armed forces as the instrument of first resort in coping with crises involving Indian citizens abroad. But there has been no matching effort to frame the issue in strategic terms.



Overseas Interests

In the biennial defence white paper issued by China in 2013, Beijing introduced a new section that reviewed China’s interests beyond borders. “With the gradual integration of China’s economy into the world economic system,” it declared, “overseas interests have become an integral component of China’s national interests.”


“Security issues are increasingly prominent, involving overseas energy and resources, strategic sea lines of communication (SLOCs), and Chinese nationals and legal persons overseas,” the white paper said. Defending these interests, according to the white paper, is one of the new historic missions of the People’s Liberation Army.


In India, Prime Ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh often declared that India’s security perimeter runs from the Suez to the South China Sea.

But the civilian leadership in the ministry of defence  (पब्लिक  को यह  बताय के  रक्षा  मंत्रालय  में  वह कौन से बाबू   है  जो  नेता  क़ी  उपाधि  में  हे) has been loath to make the necessary institutional changes or provide the political guidance and necessary resources to the armed forces.



Expeditionary Forces

As the demand for deploying the PLA beyond the nation’s borders grows, China’s strategic discourse has begun to evolve rapidly in the last few years. China’s defence debates are no longer constrained by old political inhibitions. China has long had a small marine contingent that was focused on military crises involving Taiwan. Beijing today sees a larger role for its marine brigades in its military strategy. While the PLA marines will have a critical role in asserting China’s expansive territorial claims in the South and East China Seas, Beijing has begun to occasionally deploy some units in the Indian Ocean.


China’s defence community is also debating the merits and problems of acquiring foreign military bases. While the need for timely military responses makes bases attractive, the political complications they generate can be rather difficult to deal with. China is also reviewing its traditional doctrine of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. Beijing is now taking a greater interest in resolving conflicts in regions of vital interest.


China has steadily expanded its participation in international peacekeeping operations. Since 2008, the Chinese navy has been deployed in the Gulf of Aden for counter-piracy operations. Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief have become major priorities for the PLA.


Beijing’s expansive defence diplomacy presents China as a good international citizen and a responsible power. It helps ease some of the concerns about China’s growing military power. Above all, the frequent deployment of the armed forces beyond borders generates valuable experience for the PLA in developing its expeditionary capabilities and familiarity with distant theatres.


Although India has had a longer and more impressive record of deploying its military for securing international public goods, there has been little appreciation of its strategic significance within the civilian bureaucracy and the political leadership of the defence ministry. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who articulated a more ambitious policy towards the Indian Ocean during his “Sagar Yatra” last month, will hopefully find ways to bring India’s military and strategic policies in line with its growing interests beyond borders.


The writer is a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and a contributing editor for ‘The Indian Express’

                                   Part One:

        The Maritime Silk Road and the PLA

Publication: China Brief Volume: 15 Issue: 6

March 19, 2015 05:33 PM
Age: 18 days

Category:
China Brief, Home Page, Military/Security, Foreign Policy, Energy, China and the Asia-Pacific, China, Southeast Asia, South China Sea, India 
 

By: Morgan Clemens


 

Liu Cigui, director of the State Oceanic Administration, who wrote an article on the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

 

The past decade has seen a considerable amount of speculation concerning China’s military intentions in the Indian Ocean (and overseas generally), revolving in large part around the “String of Pearls” concept (namely, a possible network of future Chinese naval and military installations stretching across the Indian Ocean). While this speculation has, occasionally, been ill-informed, even verging on the feverish, with some Western observers foreseeing a veritable Chinese invasion of the Indian Ocean, it is nonetheless clear that China has a real interest in an increased military presence and activities along the sea lanes vital to the Chinese economy.

Chinese president Xi Jinping’s fall 2013 announcement of the new “one belt, one road” (yilu yidai) strategic initiative, based on the concept of the ancient Silk Road caravan route, has only served to further fuel such speculation. This is particularly true of the initiative’s maritime component, generally referred to as the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” (21 shiji haishang sichou zhilu) and comprising a maritime trade and transportation route reaching though the South China Sea and Indian Ocean to the eastern Mediterranean, encompassing South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, as well as the Near and Middle East.

The Maritime Silk Road makes it unmistakably clear that China’s strategic interests in and along the maritime routes leading to the west (as well as the number and vulnerability of Chinese citizens working in the adjacent countries) will only increase in coming years.



The vital issue, then, is the degree to which China’s increasing economic activity along these sea lanes will translate into increased military activity and what form any increased military presence might take, especially in terms of permanent installations and support bases. This entails assessing both China’s motivations for an increased military presence along the Maritime Silk Road as well as the various constraints Beijing will face in expanding that military presence.

 This two-part article will make the argument that in the decade ahead China will likely develop an increased military presence primarily along the Indian Ocean portions of the Maritime Silk Road, but that Beijing will do so relatively slowly and that it will likely not develop explicitly military facilities to support this presence, remaining content to rely upon commercial ports.


       [1] China will, however, likely continue existing efforts to     involve Chinese state-owned enterprises in the     development and operation of major commercial port facilities in the region west of Singapore in order to ensure ease of access to port and replenishment facilities for Chinese naval vessels operating along the Maritime Silk Road.

      [2] Furthermore, should this contention regarding the development of explicitly military facilities fail to materialize, then such facilities would most likely appear first in East Africa, where China has the greatest freedom of action and room for maneuver in diplomatic and strategic terms.





Go West, Young Man

The Maritime Silk Road already represents China’s most vital sea lines of communication, both because it gives China access to three major economic zones (Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East) and because it is the route for many of China’s strategic materials, including oil, iron ore and copper ore imports. Moreover, active efforts to develop strategic and economic relationships along the Maritime Silk Road afford an opportunity (in the Chinese view) to escape the growing containment and encirclement embodied by the U.S. “pivot to Asia.” Indeed, some Chinese military authors have gone so far as to call the route of the Maritime Silk Road “the crucial strategic direction of China’s rise” (zhongguo jueqi de guanjian zhanlue fangxiang), indicating a belief that developing the route will be critical to the country’s entire development program (National Defense Reference, February 11). Language such as this could easily lead Western analysts to believe that China would wish to quickly ensure control of these sea lanes, yet the realization that such an objective could only be achieved by a navy several times the size of the current People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)—the development and construction of which would be itself a vastly expensive undertaking that would not come to pass for some decades (if ever)—should give us pause. [3] If we are to take Chinese leaders at their word when they say that China is still a developing country and indicate that there is no perpetual blank check for military development, then it seems that actual sea control along the Maritime Silk Road is not in the cards for China. 



And, indeed, it would appear that China’s existing and future military activities west of Singapore are not being cast in this light, but rather one of sea lane security and ensuring the sea lanes’ continued utility as a global commons. Chinese analysts point out that small-scale, low-intensity action will be typical of the use of naval force in the years ahead, and that when China uses force along the Maritime Silk Route, it will often occur on short notice, be focused on low-grade threats (including terrorism, piracy, drug smuggling and other transnational crime), and be multilateral in nature. While involvement in interstate conflict is certainly possible, it is considered unlikely (Sina Military, December 9, 2014). Put more bluntly, and according to a fellow of the PLA’s Academy of Military Science, “China has only two purposes in the Indian Ocean: economic gains and the security of sea lines of communication” (China-US Focus, February 11, 2014). The objectives that China and the PLA seek to achieve along the Maritime Silk Road are perhaps most succinctly summarized by a statement from a Chinese merchant mariner whose ship received medical aid from PLAN vessels in the Gulf of Aden, as described in the PLAN’s official newspaper:  “No matter where we are, so long as our warships are there, we have a feeling of security!” [4]



Given this emphasis, then, on security (as opposed to control) and on combating low-grade threats, it is clear that large, fully-capable combat support bases such as those the U.S. Navy boasts in many parts of the world, would be grossly excessive to the PLA’s needs along the Maritime Silk Road. Nonetheless, as other analysts have pointed out, we cannot necessarily expect China to continue to rely solely on local commercial facilities contracted by in-country military attachés and the Ministry of Transport on an ad hoc basis, especially as military operations along the Maritime Silk Road expand beyond their existing low benchmark. [5] At the same time, and as has been noted by Western analysts for some time (and has been more recently stated plainly by Chinese analysts), Chinese interest lies mainly in access to necessary military support facilities rather than possessing outright such facilities themselves (China-US Focus, February 11, 2014). [6] Thus we can expect any development of physical facilities along the Maritime Silk Road to be relatively limited in nature, but there almost certainly will be development of some kind. That this will be the case is made clear in Chinese writings that describe “infrastructure connectivity” (jichu sheshi hulian hutong) as a key element of the Maritime Silk Road, including a lengthy essay published in July 2014 by Liu Cigui, director of the State Oceanic Administration. In the essay, Liu states that: “Sea lane security is critical to sustaining the stable development of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, while port facilities are the foundation of sea lane security,” and that China must therefore help to establish “sea posts” (haishang yizhan) that can support and resupply the ships traveling (and securing) the sea lanes. Liu goes on to state that such “sea posts” could be newly-built, either by individual countries or with the help of China, or that China could lease (zuyong) existing facilities. [7]



Coming from such an official source, these statements appear to confirm the limited nature of Chinese military support facilities along the Maritime Silk Road in the decade ahead. Nonetheless, other semi-official sources would seem to indicate that other streams of thought certainly exist within official discourses. Typical of these are the contentions of National Defense University professor and strategist Liang Fang (also cited earlier), that a military presence along the Maritime Silk Road must serve to deter any potential enemy and that, ultimately, sea lane security can only be assured by carrier battle groups on station (National Defense Reference, February 11). While this line of thinking likely represents only a maximalist view of the PLA’s mission, probably influenced by the desire of some within the PLAN for a mission to justify a large multi-carrier fleet, it nonetheless must be taken into consideration as future strategic and budgetary debates take place within the Chinese military and civilian leadership, with the potential to change China’s calculus vis-à-vis a military presence along the Maritime Silk Road. Nonetheless, the more limited view discussed above likely prevails at present, and will likely continue to do so during the next decade, especially as it would take at least that long to build and develop the sort of force necessary to make the maximalist view a reality.


Thus, it is apparent that China has real motivations for an expanded military presence in the Indian Ocean, but these motivations are not unlimited in nature. Moreover, they will be balanced by a number of practical and strategic constraints that will serve to dictate a slow pace of growth in such a military presence. An examination of these constraints, as well as a more detailed analysis of what they portend for the PLA in the Indian Ocean, will be the focus of the second half of this article, forthcoming in the next issue.


This is the first part of a two-part series of articles examining the Chinese military’s thinking on the New Silk Road.

Part Two will detail the constraints China will face in expanding that presence, while also explaining more thoroughly the prediction made above.


Notes

1. It is unlikely that the Chinese would feel an immediate need for a significant naval or military presence in the Mediterranean as the more immediate threats to Chinese investments and lives, among other things, exist east of the Suez Canal.
2. Though the Maritime Silk Road does encompass the South Chinese Sea, military bases and operations east of Singapore are not considered in this analysis since, in the Chinese view, they are not being built on foreign territory or being undertaken in foreign waters.
3. “Control” here meaning the ability to monopolize the sea lanes and prevent any other power from interfering with traffic along them.
4. [With the Motherland’s warships there, we have a sense of security], [Renmin Haijun], January 7, 2015.
5. Christopher D. Yung, et al., “Not an Idea We Have to Shun”: Chinese Overseas Basing Requirements in the 21^st Century, (Washington: National Defense University Press, November 2014); Andrew S. Erickson and Austin M. Strange, No Substitute for Experience: Chinese Antipiracy Operations in the Gulf of Aden, (Newport: Naval War College Press, November 2013), pp. 51; 124–127.
6. Daniel J. Kostecka, “Places and Bases: The Chinese Navy's Emerging Support Network in the Indian Ocean,” Naval War College Review (Winter 2011), Vol. 64, No. 1.
7. [Liu Cigui], [Developing maritime cooperative partnerships: Reflections on building the 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road], [International Studies], 2014 No. 4.

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                          Part Two

 

The Maritime Silk Road and the PLA

Publication: China Brief Volume: 15 Issue: 7

April 3, 2015 03:43 PM Age: 3 days

Category: China Brief, Home Page, Foreign Policy, Military/Security, China and the Asia-Pacific, China, South China Sea, Africa 
 

By: Morgan Clemens


 

A PLA Navy vessel. (Credit: Xinhua)



 

In the previous issue, the first part of this article examined the various strategic and other motivations behind China’s desire for an increased military presence west of Singapore (see China Brief, March 19). Having laid out China’s basic purpose in building up a military presence and supporting bases along the Maritime Silk Road, it is incumbent to assess exactly what constraints China will face in achieving these objectives. This conclusion will examine these constraints and make broad predictions for the future.





Constraints on China’s Military Presence West of Singapore

The first set of constraints (and perhaps the most critical) is that which Chinese leaders place upon themselves. As many analysts have noted, China’s leaders have long made avoiding involvement in other countries’ affairs a key rhetorical and practical plank of their foreign policy, a plank that remains largely intact and would, at the very least, be complicated by efforts to obtain and maintain military facilities in countries lying along the Maritime Silk Road. [1] Moreover, the Chinese have generally shown that while they may be a revisionist power, they are not radically so, preferring to gradually, progressively and incrementally change the existing geopolitical order to more suit their own ends. Beyond this, they cannot help but be aware of the potential for conflict with India incumbent upon any rapid or forceful military expansion into the region, which would be almost certain to exacerbate the presently mild degree of strategic competition between the two (China News, February 12). A similar consideration would also have to be paid to the United States, which would certainly not sit diplomatically or politically idle as Chinese bases were built in the Indian Ocean or Middle East.

Beyond these self-imposed constraints, there must also be taken into account the possible (even likely) reluctance of states along the Maritime Silk Road to host any explicitly military facilities. As other Western analysts have pointed out, for more than a decade, leaders from a whole host of states have directly, forcefully and repeatedly denied any intention to allow China to build military facilities on their territory. And indeed, if China ever did have a strategic initiative along the lines of the “String of Pearls,” then it would certainly have to be considered an abject failure, having produced no real accomplishments in the past decade. [2] For its part, the Chinese government is certainly aware that most of the states in question are post-colonial in nature and, therefore, often prickly on points of national sovereignty and foreign intrusion (military or otherwise) (China News, February 12). Of course, China does have tools to overcome such resistance, especially in the form of its generous economic largesse and developmental aid, but it is still entirely possible that states in the region could closely cooperate with China in economic and transportation matters while still looking elsewhere (to the United States and India, among others) for cooperation on security affairs (The Diplomat, January 30).


A final constraint is imposed by the United States and, to a lesser extent, other powers by virtue of their own existing military presence in the region. Other Western analysts have noted that during the course of the approximately 20 People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) escort task forces dispatched to the Gulf of Aden since 2008, several ports (Aden, Djibouti and Salalah) have stood out as being most often used by those task forces for resupply and replenishment, implying that these ports would be the most likely locations for the PLAN to develop some sort of fixed support infrastructure in the region. [4] While this is likely the case, it should also be noted that those particular ports are the ones most commonly used by U.S. and other naval vessels in the region, making the development of explicitly military support facilities on the part of the Chinese practically inconceivable. [5] None of this is to say that China will not develop facilities at these (or other) locations to support and sustain PLA forces in the region, but rather that these facilities will likely not themselves be military in nature.


What to Expect in the Decade Ahead

In their recent detailed report on the issue of future Chinese overseas basing, Christopher Yung and other researchers from the U.S. National Defense University lay out six possible models from which the Chinese might choose, ranging from their existing dependence on ad hoc arrangements at local commercial facilities to a full-scale American-style network of combat support bases. In their analysis, Yung and his colleagues particularly point to what they call the “Dual-use Logistics Facility” model as that most likely to be adopted by the Chinese if they do not intend to engage in any sort of large-scale combat operations in the Indian Ocean. Under this model, a Chinese base in the region would provide “medical facilities, refrigerated storage space for fresh vegetables and fruit, rest and recreation sites, a communications station, and ship repair facilities to perform minor to intermediate repair and maintenance.” Such bases would be small and likely dispose of only 100 to 200 personnel. [6] This analysis is sound, as the “Dual-use” model most evenly balances the objectives, constraints, and capabilities discussed above.

 
One reasonable (and minor) divergence from this conclusion, however, would be the possibility that such a base would not necessarily be explicitly military in nature, especially early on.

The fact that the PLAN uses the term “yizhan”—which in Chinese connotes the old-fashioned posting stations at which official couriers and mail carriers would once have changed to fresh horses in mid-journey—to describe the “sea posts” discussed earlier likely indicates the very limited purpose for the “sea posts.” [7] It is also potentially indicative of the degree to which the PLAN may be able to “piggy-back” on a network of Chinese-run overseas commercial port facilities, such as those built, developed and operated by the state-owned Chinese Overseas Shipping Corporation (COSCO). [8] It is in this context that China’s investment and development largesse could be best put to use, by first ensuring that there are commercial ports in the region that fit their requirements and secondly by ensuring that employees of Chinese state-owned enterprises (functionally equivalent to state officials, at least for our purposes) are directly involved in the day-to-day management of those facilities and thereby well-positioned to assure Chinese military access to the facilities on a more consistent and reliable basis. While this would perhaps represent a marginally less certain degree of access than if the facilities were explicitly military in nature, it would likely be balanced by the somewhat less fraught (and provocative) effort to obtain commercial port management rights, as opposed to even limited military basing rights. [9]


Based on both the basic objectives and general constraints discussed here and in Part One, it would seem reasonable to predict that in the next decade China’s military presence west of Singapore will expand, but only to the degree necessary to successfully carry-out the general sea lane protection missions currently envisaged. The facilities to support these forces and missions will be concomitantly limited in size and will likely not even be explicitly military in nature. Or, looked at from the opposite direction, China’s military presence west of Singapore cannot expand without a proportionate expansion in the infrastructure available to support it, and given the constraints discussed above, we can expect such an infrastructure expansion to happen only slowly, thereby dictating a gradually expanding military presence in general.


The one geographic area in which there is, perhaps, a lower probability of this prediction holding true is East Africa. The past decade has seen China slowly but steadily building-up a strategic and economic presence in places such as Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Madagascar and the Seychelles, and this region has yet to become the focus of a permanent, large-scale U.S. military presence or particularly strong American strategic relationships. [10] Thus, East Africa is perhaps the portion of the Maritime Silk Road along which China presently has the greatest degree of strategic freedom of action, being not yet constrained by an overwhelming degree of U.S. activity.


Moreover, considering both the longstanding diplomatic (and even military) links China has with various East African states, as well as those states’ notable poverty (even in comparison to other states along the Maritime Silk Road), it would be likely that China would receive the best “bang for the buck” when using investment and development as tools for obtaining access to facilities. Thus, if China were to develop explicitly military bases for supporting forces anywhere along the Maritime Silk Route, then it would most likely be in East Africa, where there is the least probability of tension or confrontation (at least at present) with the United States, India or other regional powers (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, January 9, 2014; Defense Web [South Africa], November 18, 2014).



Looking Beyond 2025

As stated at the beginning, the present analysis is limited in scope to the decade ahead, but it is nonetheless pertinent to discuss at least briefly those factors that will influence China’s attitude toward overseas basing and military operations after that timeframe has passed. Making predictions beyond this point would be an exercise in futility, dependent upon a number of currently unknowable variables. First and foremost among these will be Chinese motivations, namely the Chinese leadership’s own perception of whether overseas bases and operations have been worth the political, diplomatic and fiscal expense involved. If so, then they will likely seek to expand them both geographically and quantitatively; if not, then we could expect to see retrenchment (or at least no further expansion). Next, assuming that China’s leaders continue to see net utility in overseas bases and operations, there would be the question of the country’s capability to sustain and expand them. Ultimately the maintenance of military power overseas is dependent upon basic, long-term economic vitality at home, and the decade ahead will almost certainly be critical in determining whether or not China’s historically rapid economic development can continue on a more sustainable path. Thus, the question of whether China will be able to continue expanding the military’s overseas presence in a decade’s time will depend in large part upon domestic policy decisions Chinese leaders will make between now and then. A final factor to consider is the actions of other major powers in the region, especially the United States and India. As noted previously, China will not spend the next ten years operating in a vacuum, and Chinese actions will almost certainly engender significant political, diplomatic and economic responses on the part of other powers. For instance, should the United States or India (or both) come to view any significant Chinese military presence west of Singapore as a serious problem, could very easily engage in a calculated policy to develop key ports and form strategic relationships with the key states in the region in order to limit Chinese opportunities to do so. [11] If such an eventuality came to pass, then in ten years’ time China’s leaders could well find themselves both willing and able to expand their military presence overseas, but without the necessary openings and opportunities.


L’Envoi

As a final coda, it would be useful to emphasize that there is very little inevitability concerning the expansion of China’s military presence along the Maritime Silk Road. For any nation, obtaining actual military bases overseas is an expensive, time-consuming, politically and diplomatically fraught process involving real costs and risks. It may be easy for the United States to, today, look upon its own vast global network of well-developed military bases and think of them as just a part of the natural geopolitical order, but they are not. They are in fact the product (or perhaps the fruits) of abnormal conditions. Most of the major foreign military bases currently utilized by the United States were first obtained during a period of intense and near-permanent national mobilization, from approximately 1940 through the early 1970s. Facing grave existential threats during the Second World War and the first decades of the Cold War, the enormous political and fiscal costs associated with overseas bases were discounted, while the powers most likely to view such expansion as potentially threatening under normal circumstances (namely, Britain and France) were forced into acquiescence by dint of circumstance (namely the fact that they were U.S. allies). Thus, while U.S. overseas bases and military presence were not developed on the cheap, they did largely come into being by virtue of extremely favorable domestic and international political conditions. It should be always borne in mind that China does not currently benefit from such conditions (or anything even approaching them) and almost certainly will not in the decade ahead, barring some radical and unpredictable change in current international conditions. Thus, while China will likely seek an expanded military presence west of Singapore, the sheer number of strategic, political, and other potential obstacles is such that, over the course of the next decade, any expansion will certainly take place slowly and be qualitatively limited in nature.


This is the second part of a two-part series of articles examining the Chinese military’s thinking on the New Silk Road. Part One, published in China Brief Vol. 15, Iss. 6, addressed Chinese views and some predictions about how the PLA might approach the initiative over the next ten years.


Notes

1. Daniel J. Kostecka, “Places and Bases: The Chinese Navy’s Emerging Support Network in the Indian Ocean,” Naval War College Review (Winter 2011), Vol. 64, No. 1.
2. Christopher D. Yung, et al., “Not an Idea We Have to Shun”: Chinese Overseas Basing Requirements in the 21^st Century, (Washington: National Defense University Press, November 2014), p. 27.
3. Most recently, a change in government precipitated by a January 2015 presidential election in Sri Lanka appeared to derail (or at least complicate and make less certain) various Chinese efforts to develop port facilities in that country, and also threatened to prevent a repeat of the 2014 port call by a PLAN submarine (The Economic Times, March 5).
4. Yung, et al., p.30–31.
5. Djibouti actually hosts Franco-American military forces while Aden has long been a replenishing point for Western naval forces operating in the region. Even Salalah regularly hosts American naval vessels and has become the focus of American efforts to develop its port facilities (Mina Group, January 28, 2014; Times of Oman, February 4, 2014).
6. Yung, et al., p.14, 43.
7. Of course, the further fact that the term has also been applied to the plainly military facilities being built in disputed areas of the South China Sea does complicate this assertion, but it is reasonable to view the use of the term in the west of Singapore context as generally accurate and its use in the South China Sea as a sort of propaganda or convenient euphemism.
8. While this possibility has occasionally been mentioned in the Chinese press, the author has yet to identify any authoritative Chinese military writings describing this as a definite intention, thus nit remains only a supposition, but a reasonable one considering COSCO’s longstanding role in the supply of PLAN vessels operating in the Gulf of Aden. COSCO presently has management stakes in four overseas ports: Antwerp, the Piraeus, Suez and Singapore. COSCO also operates individual terminal management companies in other overseas ports. The expansion of this presence remains stated company policy (COSCO, 2015; COSCO, 2015; COSCO, 2015; Port Finance International, March 26, 2014).
9. This would not preclude the presence of any Chinese military personnel at such facilities, but they would likely be very few in number and mostly focused on providing direct liaison services between the facility and the ships, much as the attachés do now.
10. In this context East Africa is taken to exclude the Horn of Africa (i.e. Somalia, Ethiopia, etc.).
11. This should not be construed as either a recommendation or a prediction on the part of the author, but merely an observation.

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