Naval Arms Race in the Making- Asia style

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
Oh.. India is going to beat China in the aircraft carrier race! That's a twist.

So Asia's industrial powers are building navies.... for humanitarian emergencies, to fight pirates and to hunt terrorists... yeah.

Asia's navies
Into the wide blue yonder

Jun 5th 2008 | SINGAPORE
From The Economist print edition
Asia's main powers are building up their navies. Is this the start of an arms race?

IN THE 15th century China possessed a mighty navy of “treasure fleets”. They sailed as far as Africa and the Persian Gulf, spreading China's economic and political influence across several continents. Had this naval expansion continued, some scholars say, China could have dominated the world. But successive emperors turned the nation inwards on itself, seafaring was banned and the country's great shipyards were closed. In Asia as elsewhere, it is America that rules the waves—its naval might is still needed, for example, to help defend the Malacca Strait, route for much of the region's oil and other trade.

Today a resurgent, confident and globalising China is rebuilding its naval strength. Like India, its rising Asian rival, it already has an impressive army. But both countries are finding that rapid economic growth is providing the money to realise long-cherished dreams of building ocean-going “blue-water” navies that can project power far from their home shores.

In the past two years China's navy has acquired new destroyers, frigates and submarines, some home-built, some (including its most advanced kit) Russian. A recent study by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) concluded that China was also close to beginning the production of aircraft-carriers, which would give it the ability to project airpower over great distances. China has long wanted to create a force capable of thwarting the intervention of America's Pacific fleet in any war over Taiwan. But it is also increasingly keen to protect its supplies of fuel and raw materials from threats such as piracy and terrorism.

America has particular worries about a naval base China is building on Hainan island, from where its vessels will have easy access to South-East Asia's shipping lanes—most importantly the Malacca Strait. The Indians are afraid that China's reason for building ports in Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and conducting naval exercises with Pakistan, is to extend its dominance into the Indian Ocean. Thousands of Chinese-flagged merchant ships now cross the ocean each year, giving China plenty of justification for increasing its naval presence. India, in turn, is pushing into the South China Sea, and seeking port facilities in Vietnam.
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So China and India become rivals. As the US drops support for Pakistan, Pakistan turns to China. China, which didn't blink over Darfur, is unlikely to blink when Pakistan uses aid from China to support militants in Kashmir. Will Pakistan do this? Probably- it did it when it was supposed to be helpng the US support mujahadeen in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

And if this conflict between India and Pakistan gets ugly.. potentially nuclear- than China loses Pakistan (no biggie to China), and India gets nuked. Seems pretty neat.

India shares China's concern that, as trade volumes and energy consumption soar, its security is vulnerable to any disruption of sea traffic. The flagships of its new blue-water navy will be three aircraft-carriers—the same number as Britain. The first of two Indian-built carriers is now under construction, with a launch date of 2010. A third, bought second-hand from Russia, is suffering delays and disputes over its refitting.

Tim Huxley of the IISS says that with so much attention focused on China and India, the naval expansion of other Asian countries is often overlooked. Yet several, especially South Korea, are also building long-range naval capabilities. Besides new submarines and destroyers, the South Koreans, like the Japanese, are commissioning helicopter-carriers.

Is this an arms race? As Asia's defence ministers and military chiefs gathered in Singapore last weekend for their main annual summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue (organised by the IISS), the conclusion of most analysts seemed to be: not yet. A classic arms race, says Mr Huxley, consists of two main countries that have one dominating dispute. Asia is different. Instead, it has the makings of a pair of opposing alliances. A “quad” group (India, America, Australia and Japan) plus Singapore now conduct naval manoeuvres together. So do China and Pakistan. But China and India seem keen to avoid provoking each other. Indeed, they are seeking to build good relations between their navies.
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Diplomacy is saying, "Nice doggie, good doggie.. while you reach for the baseball bat."

Military chiefs at the summit insisted they were not seeking an arms race and gave various justifications for all their new warships. Rather implausibly, China and others insisted they were mainly to ward off pirates and terrorists. South Korea's defence minister, Lee Sang-hee, said North Korea's navy threatened its maritime supply lines. As if to prove him right, on May 30th the North test-fired three ship-to-ship missiles in the Yellow Sea.

Disaster relief is also commonly cited as a reason to have a bigger navy. Within days of Myanmar's cyclone, three existing blue-water navies—those of America, France and Britain—had ships off the country's coast, laden with supplies (see article). South Korea's and Japan's new helicopter carriers could also one day be useful for moving troops in United Nations peacekeeping operations.

So there are plenty of ways for Asian powers to use their navies co-operatively. Equally, plenty of disputes might more easily escalate into war if the countries concerned had the naval strength to wage it. The potentially oil-rich Spratly and Paracel Islands, for example, are claimed in whole or part by six countries. In 1988 more than 70 Vietnamese sailors died in a naval battle with China in the Spratlys. Dozens of Koreans died in battles over a disputed sea border in 1999 and 2002.

Even without any ill intent, accidents will happen at sea. France's defence minister, Hervé Morin, worries about all the new submarines that will soon be lurking in the region's shallow and crowded shipping lanes. If one went missing, or suffered a collision, there is a danger of this being misconstrued as hostile action. He argues that to prevent minor incidents escalating in this way, Asian countries need to invest a lot more time in discussions of regional security and do more to replace mutual suspicion with co-operation and confidence-building. If not, Asia's cautious naval build-up could indeed mutate into a classic, old-fashioned arms race.
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Oceans are fundamentally open territory for potential conflicts- this was the basis of some of the pivotal works on the important work on sea power. Oceans can provide nice big borders but can also increase vulnerability with rivals that can land forces on beaches.

Navies are also expensive and generally not very useful besides protecting trade lines or for coercive diplomacy. Still- makes for some nice sabre rattling.
 
I would think that China'd be more interested in solving their population crisis, and becoming self-sufficient... instead of throwing money at their navy.

Thousands of Chinese-flagged merchant ships now cross the ocean each year, giving China plenty of justification for increasing its naval presence.
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That seems like a BS excuse to me. They need destroyers/carriers/subs to protect their merchant ships?

As for the sabre rattling part, nuclear/bioweapons research (I'm sure they're already doing this) would be a much more effective way of china asserting itself as a 'dominant' nation.
 
LOL, given the poor craftsmanship and the contractor looking their way to make a buck, I doubt those things can even leave the dry dock. I seriously doubt the Chinese government actually has the money to run this sucker efficiently.

And Beijing is not navy friendly, most of the greatest victories ever fought in Chinese history were land based. In the semi fictional "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Cao Cao(who is from the North) lost a very decisive battle because he isn't used to ship to ship battles. In navy battles, you can't just send more people in and expect to win.

In the end, it will probably be built by a combination of European and Russian companies/technology and staffed with incompetent party sons and daughters who can't take responsibilities for their own bed wetting. And it will probably sink because there were too much sulfur in the steel due to Chinese companies looking to make a buck cost cutting.
 
@Starseeker- dude you are harsh.

Not so sure I agree. Recently, didn't the Chinese manage to sneak a sub real close to a US aircraft carrier?

@ Phil Not really-

Case in point- during the oil crisis of the 1970s, Kissinger threatened use of nuclear weapons against OPEC members- and got laughed at.

To the best of my knowledge, the US never really used nuclear diplomacy against some of the more restless members of its sphere of influence in Latin America. Would threatening Nicaragua with nuclear attack really worked - no.

Nuclear weapons work if the threat is credible. Who would believe that the US would actually nuke Nicaragua? Hell, we wouldn't nuke China over Korea or Vietnam- and those were more serious wars.

In contrast, when I lived in Singapore a friend told me about a potential coup in Malaysia. Apparently the military had gotten restless with local politics and some faction was thinking of changing things.

The US 7th fleet was in the neighborhood at the time and put its birds in the air.

And things got quiet in Malaysia really fast.

Sabre rattling, backed with coercive force, can work. Back in the old days of the 19th century, countries would send battleships to bombard cities if they didn't like how business was being done. That's the nice thing about conventional weapons- if someone calls the bluff, you can back it up with explosive metal. With nukes, well.. you'd look silly.

Lets say, for instance, that Indonesia or Brunei didn't want to sell oil to China- perhaps because it wanted to sell oil to Japan or Europe. Then China could sail its fleet around Brunei and say, "You sure about that?" Good chance Brunei might change its mind.

Coercive diplomacy only works when someone actually believes the threat is real.
 
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
I would think that China'd be more interested in solving their population crisis...
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Okay, sure, because the resources involved in building a navy and the resources you'd need to "solve" the "population crisis" (how would you "solve" that exactly anyway?) are definitely the same.
... and becoming self-sufficient...
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Self-sufficient? What modern, industrialized nation is self-sufficient? The United States sure as hell isn't self-sufficient. We import damn near everything and export almost nothing (besides paper money and bonds denominated in US currency, which has no real value).
That seems like a BS excuse to me. They need destroyers/carriers/subs to protect their merchant ships?
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Um, yes? What else are they going to protect them with, row-boats with gatling guns mounted on the prow?
As for the sabre rattling part, nuclear/bioweapons research (I'm sure they're already doing this) would be a much more effective way of china asserting itself as a 'dominant' nation.
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You're actually advocating that China should make nuclear and biological weapons instead of a navy?
 
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
That seems like a BS excuse to me. They need destroyers/carriers/subs to protect their merchant ships?
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In other words, they need them to "protect their interests". Same excuse that any other great power have ever used to have a navy bigger than what is needed for national defense.

Think of it like this: "we are protecting our interest around the world, and thereby protecting our country"

Ask yourself this: Why does the US have such a huge navy? I mean the soviet union is gone and their navy is (yes i know they have been trying to fix it recently) mostly a rust bucket.

Cannot blame the chinese for trying to catch up. Will be fun to see if they manage to.
 
LOL, my point, which somehow got lost in the acidity, is this - China lives in its past. School kids are still told how glorious China were, and recite 1000 years old poems about how great the place was(most of it is gone due to Chinese pollution and CCP, 3 gorges dam anyone?).

Chinese generals/politicians get points for reciting ancient war stories and quotes generals who were fighting with arrows and horses.

It's all part of this idea on how not to lose their own Chineseness in the "onslaught" of foreign ideals, technology and "crazy" choices.

They will happily stab each other in the back to make more bucks or get higher up the latter. Seriously, if the CIA somehow managed to sneak the family of the Captain of this new Aircraft carrier out to US and pay him enough money, he would be glad to surrender the whole thing to the US like the "Red October".
 
Ah the sub incident-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ercise-leaving-military-chiefs-red-faced.html

is a political signal- that we can sneak up and sink your aircraft carriers if we want to.

These kinds of games were played frequently during the Cold War between US and Soviet navies. What I wonder if whether the US knew the Chinese were there all along.

The reason this hasn't been really a problem has been two fold-
(1) The US Seventh Fleet sails from Japan to the Persian Gulf. This provided much of the security needed. While there have been pirates (especially off Indonesia and in the South China Seas), generally this worked.

But of course the Chinese nor the North Koreans would trust the US navy. I mean, what if the US navy intercepted Chinese ships that were bringing silkworm missiles to Iran?

(2) Money, or rather, relative prosperity. The richer a country gets, the more likely it is to pay for things like navies.

The problem is that the Navy is a bureaucracy- it needs to justify itself. SO it says to the government- hey, if you don't give me X dollars, or Yuan, then I can't promise that I can defend your access to Persian Gulf Oil. So the government gives the money and the navy builds its military capacity.

Downside- years later when push comes to shove, the government looks at the Navy and says, "hey what about that force projection thing..."

Which is one of the explanations why Japan got in over its head before World War 2.
 
China doesn't have money. As a country, it is as poor as Congo because everyone wants to stuff their own pocket. The navy generals are down right jealous because they can't sell ports to the developers to build apartments to make billions of yuen!

And - A river navy does not an ocean navy make.
 
Starseeker said:
LOL, my point, which somehow got lost in the acidity, is this - China lives in its past. School kids are still told how glorious China were, and recite 1000 years old poems about how great the place was
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That sounds pretty similar to the US educational system to me, and probably most others are similar. We're taught how great the US is because of our "glorious" war for independence (though it's oddly rarely mentioned that those fighting for independence we're in the minority among the colonial population, and that we probably would've lost without assistance from the French navy), and all the ideals the Constitution was founded on (even though few, if any, politicians or even regular citizens nowadays give a rat's ass about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or indeed any of the founders' ideals).
It's all part of this idea on how not to lose their own Chineseness in the "onslaught" of foreign ideals, technology and "crazy" choices.
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Although I'm sure it's taken to an extreme, trying to preserve something of your own unique culture is hardly a bad thing.
They will happily stab each other in the back to make more bucks or get higher up the latter.
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Also hardly something unique to the Chinese or "communism."

And before someone attempts to paint me this way: no, I don't hate the US and/or love China. I'm just not blindly nationalistic.
 
Kyuu said:
Okay, sure, because the resources involved in building a navy and the resources you'd need to "solve" the "population crisis" (how would you "solve" that exactly anyway?) are definitely the same.
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It all starts with money. Before you get the steel, the fuel, the weapons, you need money. As for money being able to solve the population crysis, I don't think it would be a stretch to offer government sponsored abortions, and much stricter policing on births.

Self-sufficient? What modern, industrialized nation is self-sufficient? The United States sure as hell isn't self-sufficient. We import damn near everything and export almost nothing (besides paper money and bonds denominated in US currency, which has no real value).
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Working on becoming self-sufficient is important. Obviously it isn't going to happen overnight, or even in the next decade... but it needs to happen. Once we roll into that global food shortage, who do you think is going to be hit the hardest (After developing nations of course)? The insanely overpopulated countries. Even with the decline of the dollar, the US isn't going to starve.


Um, yes? What else are they going to protect them with, row-boats with gatling guns mounted on the prow?
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Staff the ships with soldiers? That seems a lot more practical than a full-blown fleet, and I seriously doubt that any nearby nation would be willing to risk war in order to poach a few merchant ships... so that just leaves pirates.

You're actually advocating that China should make nuclear and biological weapons instead of a navy?
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It would be a much wiser investment. Nuclear/Bioweapons actually command attention... while any navy they could amass would be crippled/destroyed by our nuclear subs scattered all over the ocean if it attempted to move against us/our allies.

*shrug*
 
LOL, you have never been here, have you?

American history is what? 250 years old? Chinese history is what? 5000 years old? Do you see the point of relevancy?

Preserving their culture? You really haven't been here, have you? CR destroyed Chinese culture. What's left of it is a cling to history (which is been dismantled to make new ones or left rotten to attract tourist dollars), past glories, pointless family traditions(which doesn't fit today's world), and a form of thought control under Confucius' doctrine.

And I never said it's unique to China or has any relevancy to communism. In fact, communism freed the Chinese from the doctrine of mandate of heaven, and Confucius, and CCP also freed 1.1 billion people from morality and social conscience. They are now in a hurry to put it back, which is not what Mao would have wanted.

I don't really understand the last statement.

And how is this relevant to the Chinese navy?
 
Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude said:
On a related note, that is a pretty big gap between Germany/US/China and the rest of the world (I thought Japan would be higher).
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Not everyone pays for hentai.
 
To be honest, I have always considered China to not have the capacity to build a blue water navy. A few Ballistic Missile Subs? Perhaps. But considering that the Soviet Union was able to dominant a whole lot more territory and build a pretty capable navy, I wouldn't sell the Chinese short.

The question is, I suspect, not whether they have the capacity. If India can plan on putting three aircraft carriers to sea, than China probably can put at least one aircraft carrier afloat.

The question rather, is why? What are the goals? Building a navy is a capital intensive enterprise. To be effective it must be technically sophisticated- ideally state of the art. That's not easy.

Given the economic challenges facing China- the huge income disparities of its population- investing in a blue water navy indicates an interesting choice- why not promote broad social development? Perhaps broad social class development is not necessary? Or perhaps its not as important as protecting resource extraction and trade from abroad.

Consider China's recent investment projects in Africa, a blue water navy might be seen as essential to safeguard its growing interests there. And why Africa- resource extraction necessary to sustain its economic engine?

Even if the Chinese were interested in broad social development (a dubious thesis)- such a program would still require that China sustain its economic engine. But is this neo-mercantilism? From what I have seen neo-mercantilism is a viable basis to imperialism and predatory rule.

THoughts?
 
welsh said:
Ah the sub incident-
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During a NATO exercise a Norwegian sub emerged next to a US carrier, took a picture and then submerged unnoticed. From what we were told someone lost their job over that. My point being that one do not need to have a superpower navy to sneak a sub up on a carrier.
 
Thing is- your a nation whose navy is on exercises. Some country sends its submarine to sneak on your favorite aircraft carrier. What do you do? Depth charge the submarine and risk a war?

(Ha ha! That will show them!!)
 
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