Future US–China strategic interaction may assume a character of intense, militarized rivalry or of a cooperative nature. Perhaps most likely is a middle course that simultaneously reveals elements of cooperation as well as elements of competition. Prudent national security planners must examine conflict scenarios to safeguard their own nations and national interests. But, as Hugh White writes, there is another reason to carefully consider the potential shape of a hypothetical armed conflict between China and the United States: “those who cannot imagine catastrophe have no capacity to prevent it.”Footnote 1 A close examination, therefore, of the emerging naval balance could be useful for both military planners and diplomats so they can better develop cautious and realistic policies that might effectively preserve the peace in the Asia-Pacific in the coming decades.
In evaluating the question, “How far away is the People's Liberation Army (PLA) from challenging US naval mastery?” this paper will take actual combat as the ultimate arbiter of superiority and “challenge,” realizing that navies regularly participate during peacetime in a whole panoply of diplomatic activities and military posturing that might resemble combat operations in limited respects. Some attention to this wide array of non-conflict activities is offered at the outset of the discussion below, but the bulk of this analysis is focused on key dimensions of the naval balance as seen through the prism of modern naval warfare. It will be important to keep in mind a cliché among military strategists that the armed force that looks good on the parade ground is not necessarily the most effective on the battlefield.
A few assumptions are worth discussing at the outset, however briefly. First, the time horizon under consideration for the purposes of this paper is from the present time to one or two decades into the future, namely through 2035. Over this period of time, one may expect the full maturation of various combat systems now in the testing phase, as well as the development and fielding of certain new weapons systems. This leads us directly to a second and related assumption that the character of naval warfare will evolve in some respects, but that the general tendencies visible in the post-Cold War world will remain in place. Thus, it is absolutely clear that unmanned systems will assume a larger role in future naval combat, but it is not yet apparent that laser weaponry will fundamentally change the future of naval warfare. An unexpected breakthrough in this or other emerging technologies might render much of the analysis below obsolete, so this caveat should be kept in mind.
Another vital caveat concerns choice of scenarios under consideration. This is no small matter, to state the obvious. Any amateur strategists could ascertain that a conflict off the coast of California is a very different fight for the United States than one in the South China Sea. The differences, moreover, are not only related to the forces deployed but also concern complex political calculations, including the analytically slippery concept of the “will to fight.” To try to discipline the discussion below, the paper will touch upon the most likely potential naval conflict scenarios, including the South China Sea scenario, the Taiwan scenario, and the East China Sea scenario. Lower probability scenarios, such as an Indian Ocean scenario, are discussed but only briefly near the end of the analysis. Rather far-fetched scenarios, such as in the Arctic domains, are not seriously considered below but also cannot be ruled out completely.
An issue quite related to the choice of scenarios concerns the critical question of “alert time” or “strategic surprise.” In other words, which side strikes first and how much time each side has to mobilize its forces for battle. Such considerations are not minor and can have enormous campaign effects. For example, most analysts agree that submarines are crucial weapons in modern naval warfare. Yet, it is clear that destroying submarines in their bases is much easier than trying to find and eliminate them at sea. Analysts have pointed out, moreover, that the PLA has some tradition of achieving “strategic surprise,” for example in Korea in late 1950 or against India in 1962, while the United States has tended to meticulously build up its forces over a period of months before going on the offensive, as in both Iraq wars.Footnote 2 Therefore, an element of surprise should be incorporated into the scenario discussion with a likely alerting advantage for Beijing.Footnote 3 That advantage may be substantially amplified by geographic proximity as well as new technologies that could make a surprise attack more feasible.Footnote 4
A truism in strategic studies holds that warfare is highly complex and unpredictable. What appears to be a stable military balance, such as the German–French ground forces match up in 1940 that was seen to favour Paris by observers at the time, can be suddenly and cruelly overthrown by innovative doctrines or cunning strategies.Footnote 5 This paper attempts to fill a perceived gap in strategic studies analysis with respect to US–China naval conflict scenarios. The author is concerned that analyses on the subject tend to be simplistic macro force structure comparisonsFootnote 6 or alternatively alight on a single weapons system with claims of its determinative impact in a conflict.Footnote 7 Undoubtedly, attempts at a more comprehensive view of the naval balance in the Asia-Pacific must be undertaken with due humility given the myriad factors in play.
It is fully recognized here that such an undertaking might be more appropriate to large institutions, even whole government agencies that employ hundreds of analysts and are able to give full play to the most elaborate intelligence gathering techniques, war-gaming tools and related combat modelling algorithms. As it happens, during the drafting of this small-scale study, a rather large-scale investigation of the US–China military balance in the Western Pacific was published by RAND, one of the very best defence-oriented think tanks, and its reasonable conclusions are likely to set a benchmark for future, major comprehensive research on the military balance going forward. Many of the findings from that landmark 2015 study, entitled The US–China Military Scorecard,Footnote 8 are summarized below, but several flaws are also pointed out, some of which may be attributed to the nature of contracted research and large bureaucratic organizations.
The individual scholar applying conventional tools, and even common sense, may yet be able to make a contribution.Footnote 9 The approach in this paper will follow a “Chinese style” in that it will examine the Asia-Pacific strategic balance as a series of military campaigns. There is no special logic to the ordering of the campaigns – they are all important – except that we begin with two non-kinetic US–China maritime confrontations.
Campaign 1: White Hulls and Non-Traditional Security
Coast guard operations have become so important in the Asia-Pacific maritime security environment that they are apparently on the minds of military decision makers.Footnote 10 They have also become a key metric of maritime power and influence in the region. Indeed, the Chinese coastguard made headlines in 2015 when assessments revealed that it had become “the world's largest blue water coast guard fleet.”Footnote 11 The prevailing logic among US analysts and in allied countries has been the fear that China would exert maritime coercion by employing its coastguard to overwhelm smaller regional coastguards. This form of coercion – operating as it would below the threshold of armed combat – would allow Beijing to dominate with its superior maritime law enforcement (MLE) capabilities, while forcing smaller regional neighbours into the very uncomfortable position of having to contemplate an escalation to the use of armed force. Already, this scenario has unfolded in a number of instances, including the most well-known at Scarborough Shoal in 2012Footnote 12 and also near the Paracel Islands in 2014.Footnote 13
It is certainly worth pointing out that MLE vessels are generally designed to handle a wide panoply of missions other than enforcing sovereignty claims. Therefore, Chinese MLE capabilities could potentially also play a role in environmental regulations, fisheries enforcement, narcotics and smuggling interdiction, managing refugee flows, maintaining aids to navigation and inspecting merchant vessels, undertaking salvage and mapping missions, as well as the important search and rescue and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief missions. These critical missions comprise what Geoffrey Till has called “maintaining good order at sea.”Footnote 14 Moreover, it is a fair point in defence of an enlarged China coastguard that East Asia's busy and often constricted sea lanes are in need of this “good order.” Yet, it is also quite clear that a major objective of China's rapid MLE build-up has been the goal of leveraging these new capabilities in the two major maritime disputes. Indeed, Chinese sources confirm a high degree of confidence in this approach. A researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences wrote recently of a “Scarborough Shoal Model” (Huangyan dao moshi 黄岩岛模式) and explained that “non-military conflict was the bottom line to attain effective control over disputed shoals and surrounding sea areas,” enabling a shift to a “more proactive” maritime policy.Footnote 15 Similarly, a Chinese assessment of the MLE capabilities balance in the East China Sea yields the expectation that even Japan's impressive coastguard is overmatched.Footnote 16 True, there have been some suggestions among US allies to rectify this seemingly obvious imbalance in capabilities. For example, Tokyo is presently working to outfit Manila with a number of advanced patrol cutters. However, it is far from clear that such efforts will be large enough or timely enough to make a meaningful difference. Moreover, the Chinese are now building a new class of ocean-going cutters which have the disturbing characteristic of being easily converted into naval frigates.Footnote 17 Beyond the Asia-Pacific region, Beijing has even apparently laid ambitious plans to deploy its ample coastguard assets with regularity into the Atlantic.Footnote 18 For the foreseeable future, Beijing will retain a large advantage in MLE capabilities, at least in the Western Pacific, that translates to a strong coercive advantage in the critical non-military realm of maritime disputes.
Campaign 2: Maritime Domain Awareness and Surveillance
Since the devastating Pearl Harbor attack that opened the Pacific War, the United States has strongly emphasized naval intelligence with a focus on maritime surveillance for developing maritime domain awareness. US capabilities remain extremely robust in this area. Along with the largest satellite network, extensive communications listening posts and radar stations, the US can draw upon an impressive fleet of maritime patrol aircraft and a large flotilla of specialized acoustic monitoring vessels, not to mention the obvious surveillance advantages of long-endurance fast attack nuclear submarines. This extensive apparatus is now being supplemented by drone technology, to include the new MQ-4C Triton broad area maritime surveillance platform.Footnote 19
China has long rankled under the vigorous US surveillance posture. For example, a late 2014 interview with a Chinese electronic warfare specialist after a summer 2014 incident between a Chinese SU-27 interceptor and US P-8 yielded the following comment: “the Chinese side's request to the US to reduce surveillance operations are rejected. … [The US] planes do not enter our country, but the electro-magnetic waves come into our country. [This] is a weapon … In fact, these are all war operations.”Footnote 20 Indeed, there is ample evidence that the US–China relationship has been adversely impacted by tensions related to US surveillance operations. A recent American scholarly study of US intelligence operations against China during the Cold War interestingly suggests that such operations have previously had the paradoxical impact of actually hastening the process of Chinese military modernization.Footnote 21 The 2014 interview with a Chinese electronic warfare specialist cited above also hints at China's logical response to such surveillance practices – and that is to develop analogous capabilities. There are already some signs that a more robust Chinese intelligence and surveillance posture is in the works. For example, a Chinese surveillance vessel monitored the large-scale RIMPAC exercise organized by the US off Hawaii in mid-2014.Footnote 22 About a year later, a Chinese naval squadron was discovered operating in waters off Alaska for the first time.Footnote 23
In fact, China has taken a number of proactive steps to improve its surveillance posture, particularly in the sea areas proximate to the Chinese mainland. One of the most interesting of these steps has been the effort to build an undersea network of fixed sonar arrays that goes back at least a decade.Footnote 24 That initiative has not received the attention generated by China's ambitious reef-building reclamation efforts in the South China Sea, but it may be as or more consequential for battlefield preparation. Other efforts along similar lines include a rapidly improving reconnaissance satellite constellation, deployment of a new maritime patrol aircraft, the GX-6, in addition to a very large amphibious patrol aircraft AG600, a prototype of which was revealed at the Zhuhai 珠海 Air Show in 2016. Beijing is also opening a new chapter in maritime surveillance with its increased use of drones. China has undertaken large-scale development of unmanned aerial vehicles, and many of these may have maritime applications, but it has also demonstrated a pronounced interest in unmanned underwater vehicles, as well as unmanned surface vehicles for naval purposes.Footnote 25 Moreover, there are the non-military assets that could be important force multipliers for China's maritime surveillance network, including the huge force of coastguard cutters, discussed above, an immense fleet of fishing vessels and its hefty merchant marine. The RAND Scorecard study includes an excellent survey of high-tech Chinese surveillance assets, such as its Skywave over-the-horizon radar, but it neglects to consider more low-tech surveillance means, such as fishing vessels, that could also present dilemmas regarding rules of engagement.Footnote 26
To close the discussion on the “maritime surveillance” campaign, there can be little doubt of the US advantage in this realm given its large infrastructure, wide array of capabilities and decades of experience with this undertaking. Still, one must acknowledge that China's growing means for conducting surveillance have already improved greatly. A further intriguing question concerns how open Beijing and Washington are regarding their surveillance capabilities. In other words, wartime and peacetime surveillance could be rather different and one can only suppose that it would be wise to keep some capabilities for combat intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems hidden from view in order to retain the effectiveness of such systems in the initial phase of combat. Therefore, some due caution is necessary when attempting to analyse this campaign in the open realm.
Campaign 3: Missile Strike Warfare
Many strategists evaluating the evolving US–China military balance contend that the missile campaign could very well be decisive in any US–China military conflict. A closely related thesis holds that this campaign is the most important. It is difficult to disagree with either of these suppositions if one is considering military hostilities of a medium scale or higher. Indeed, a comprehensive analysis of Beijing's potential to contest for “naval mastery” could well devote half or more of the analysis to the alarming possibility that an opening salvo of conventional ballistic missile strikes could not only cause sufficient damage to US and allied airbases to render them inoperable for the opening phases of combat (a scenario examined in greater detail in Campaign 5 below) but could also pulverize ships and naval stores in port, and even achieve the holy grail of “anti-access” combat operations: targeting capital ships at sea over ranges of thousands of miles. Some naval analysts have supposed that this new ability to strike surface ships at sea with ballistic missiles may even make surface ships obsolete in future conflicts.Footnote 27
Given the major developments discussed above, therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that long-range road-mobile missiles of various types comprised the “centre-piece” of the major Chinese military parade on 3 September 2015. Indeed, the official Chinese unveiling of the intermediate range DF-26 ballistic missile with anti-ship (fanjian 反舰) designation among others (also land attack) may finally put to rest a debate among observers of China's military modernization about how far the PLA has gone in this direction. That weapon is apparently a longer-range version of the much-discussed DF-21D missile – the world's first anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). However, even if the PLA could not target moving ships at sea, the Chinese conventional ballistic missile force would still pose an extraordinary challenge, as outlined above, because of its ability to gravely threaten forward US and allied bases. Indeed, the Second Artillery is by far the largest and most advanced conventional missile force in the world. While the RAND Scorecard study does give ample attention to the missile threat against US forward airbases, it may well understate the devastation wrought by Chinese missile attacks. For example, that study suggests: “Against an attack by 274 MRBMs … the [Kadena] base might be closed for ten days.” Making such heroic assumptions as “reducing runway repair times to four hours,” that investigation seems to focus almost entirely on the physical integrity of the runway and parked aircraft, paying little attention to munitions and fuel storage, not to mention the safety of the pilots and base support personnel.Footnote 28 Indeed, there is no mention in the RAND study of the fact that the last time the US armed forces attempted to conduct high intensity flight operations from an airbase that was under severe attack was over 60 years ago.Footnote 29
Moreover, new deployments of long-range land attack cruise missiles with variants that are ground-launched, air-launched and, perhaps most threatening, submarine-launched provide a potent complement to the ballistic missile force. Over the next decade, Beijing is all but certain to deploy submarine-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs) to strike the most challenging American targets that might even include bases and infrastructure in the continental United States (CONUS). Yet another likely refinement of China's potentially devastating “missile campaign,” moreover, will be the introduction of hypersonic missiles. Ample research material, together with several reported tests, suggests that Beijing could be close to deploying these new-type weapons. It is worth observing that neither the Chinese SLCM threat, which is extant today, nor China's development of hypersonic weaponry is seriously considered in the RAND Scorecard study.
Despite the successful US intercept of an ICBM in late May 2017, missile defence options against China do not seem particularly promising owing to expense, reliability and system vulnerabilities as well as Beijing's elaborate countermeasures. One alternative strategic approach that has sparked a dynamic discussion among the US and its allies in the Asia-Pacific concerns the expansion of conventional missile forces of various kinds. South Korea may be furthest along in fielding such a force – a development motivated, of course, by North Korean missile deployments. However, other regional players such as Taiwan and Japan are at least discussing the possibilities. An approach highlighted by a RAND study published in 2013 examined the possibility of countering Chinese naval ambitions by placing anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) on land-based launchers all along the first island chain. That would amount to an attempt to turn the strategy of “using the land to control the sea” (yi lu zhi hai 以陆制海) against China. Of course, the US possesses its own large force of submarine- and air-launched missiles that could strike Chinese bases and deployed forces. Not long ago, all four American SSGNs (SSBN “boomers” converted from carrying large nuclear-tipped missiles to deploying expanded numbers of conventional Tomahawks for land attack) deployed to the Asia-Pacific region in a show of force.Footnote 30 Obviously, the US air force also brings to the table a number of long-range strike assets, including the B-1, B-2, and the ageing B-52 fleet. Hypersonic weapons development in the US is, moreover, also quite advanced.Footnote 31
Assessing the overall missile campaign is difficult but some modest projections can be made. China has been described by American military planners as a “cruise missile sponge,” alluding to the fact that China's large forces in theatre, complex geography, as well as extensive base hardening and camouflaging, could mitigate the impact of initial strikes by the US and its allies in a conflict. Moreover, relatively slow moving cruise missiles are inherently easier to counter than ballistic missiles. In addition, the obvious concentration of US forces into limited base areas (for example, Guam) seems to imply that Beijing retains a strong advantage when considering the potentially decisive missile campaign phase of a US–China military conflict.
Campaign 4: Surface Warfare
China has moved dramatically over the last decade to improve the quality and quantity of its surface combatants. After a pause of several years, a new array of large destroyers, including Type 052D, will be coming on line. This will be followed in turn by Type 055. That prototype has yet to be revealed, but it is expected to be unusually large in displacement and will likely be on a par with the US navy's most advanced destroyers.Footnote 32 These programmes complement an active frigate programme, the Type 054, that has resulted in about 20 hulls over the last ten years. China has also built small surface combatants, particularly the light frigate Type 056, at a torrid pace with about 40 produced since 2012.Footnote 33 A couple of new oilers reflect the fact that the PLA navy (PLAN) continues to be limited by its lack of overseas bases. The surface fleet is rounded out by a force of approximately 60 Type 022 fast-attack craft.Footnote 34
The US navy surface force is built around a force of 62 Arleigh Burke destroyers and 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers. With that large fleet of vessels, the US navy will maintain a considerable edge in surface combatant tonnage for some time, especially if one adds the significant destroyer fleets of allies like Japan. Some US navy destroyers have been upgraded to become ballistic missile defence platforms, and they may retain a lead over the PLAN in providing fleet air defence. However, Chinese capabilities have been steadily improving in this area. Moreover, the PLAN seems to have taken a major lead in the crucial domain of ASCMs with the recent deployment of the YJ-18 missile, which appears to surpass the standard US ASCM weapon, the Harpoon missile, in terms of both range and speed. Indeed, a rather significant oversight in the RAND Scorecard study concerns the range of this new missile, described at one point in that work as 178 km and another point at 220 km.Footnote 35 That contradiction might not be that troubling, except that the 2015 Pentagon report on Chinese military capabilities estimates the range of the formidable YJ-18 missile to be 290 nautical miles, more than double the estimates quoted in the RAND report.Footnote 36 The Pentagon assessment remains the same in the 2017 version of the report.Footnote 37 As naval analysts will attest, the ASCM is hardly a minor weapon system. On the modern naval battlefield, this is the “coin of the realm” and this mistake may impact the integrity of current estimates of Chinese naval capabilities (not least because the same missiles are set to be deployed throughout the Chinese submarine fleet as well).
Another area of concern for Western strategists has emerged with respect to small surface combatants deployed by the US. In particular, it has been widely noted that the Littoral Combat Ship still does not currently carry any kind of ASCM, although some options are now being explored to rectify this shortfall in capability. Nevertheless, it has been widely noted that the Littoral Combat Ship, a ship now more or less on permanent station in the South China Sea, would likely be vulnerable to an ASCM attack if it found itself in a direct engagement with China's new small surface combatant, the Type 056, or even if confronted with China's small fast-attack craft.
While the above scenario is somewhat disconcerting, to be sure, one needs to keep in mind that evolving naval warfare is almost certain to be inhospitable to any surface ships, American or Chinese. The projected future environment, where submarines, missiles and, to a lesser extent, aircraft rule the waves, seems quite unlikely to yield up major surface engagements. Bearing in mind the fate of both the Sheffield and also the General Belgrano in the Falklands War, a conflict studied very closely by Chinese strategists,Footnote 38 the outcome of a major US–China clash of arms at sea will be very much determined by the aerial and undersea campaigns.
Campaign 5: The Aerial Maritime Contest
Arguably, it is in the aerial arena that China's rise has been felt most directly from a strategic point of view. True, as I have noted in the preceding section, Beijing's surface fleet is growing apace. But, that rapidly modernizing fleet is still far from mature, and remains quite vulnerable to attack, especially from US and allied submarines (see Campaign 6 below). Moreover, the Liaoning carrier project has gone relatively smoothly, but it is widely understood that China's aircraft carriers at present would likely be hard pressed to stand up to even a single American carrier battle group – let alone at clutch of them – based on sheer firepower alone and not counting operational experience. Beijing launched its second aircraft carrier in April 2017 and it is indeed quite plausible that China will have three to four carrier battle groups operational in its fleet sometime after 2025, but the major enabler for the projection of Chinese airpower over the next 20 years will not be the aircraft carrier but rather medium- and long-range missile strikes. As discussed above, these strikes, likely to occur at the outset of any conflict, could well render inoperable all major US and allied airbases in theatre, including and especially in Okinawa and Guam. Such a “missile blitz” could allow China to accomplish what Germany and Japan could not during the Second World War: the creation of a zone of Chinese “air control” over the entire Western Pacific.
This prospect will not sit well with Western military strategists, even though a RAND study raised the possibility of this outcome (in a Taiwan context) as far back as 2009.Footnote 39 Airbases can and have been hardened to a limited extent, for example on Taiwan itself. But no massive caves are likely to be built either at Kadena (Okinawa) or at Anderson (Guam). A huge effort by the US armed forces to restructure towards unmanned aviation could hypothetically also reduce the pressure in an air campaign. Obviously, drones will be able to fly more dangerous missions, as well as operate from much more austere airfields. Whether or not the US air force receives a new long-range bomber over the next two decades, legacy systems including the B-1, B-2 and even the aged B-52 will provide long-range stand-off strike platforms that can hit Chinese targets without even entering contested air space. And, even if F-22s are grounded by missile damage to their air bases, the F-35 is likely to be in the fight – perhaps relying heavily on the USMC F-35B VSTOL version since the US navy's big decks could be held to areas outside of Chinese missile ranges. One can imagine these VSTOL aircraft literally popping up from surprise locations all over the first island chain to suddenly interrupt the PLA's air superiority.
Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to suppose that, following major missile strikes, Beijing could deploy a massive force of fighters (Flanker variants, J-10s with the newer J-20s and J-31s) to create a relatively strong zone of air superiority over the Western Pacific, including within most of the first island chain. Again, this is a situation where a “fair fight” among two somewhat equally sized and equipped opponents would become quite lopsided when one side is able to achieve dramatic battlefield effects with the opening missile barrage. At this point, China's large fleet of strike aircraft (J-7/Su-30/J-16/J-20/H-6 K) would be relatively free to roam the skies and could administer tough blows against Allied maritime forces attempting to break into the Chinese “bastion.” As with the supersonic ASCMs discussed in the prior section on surface warfare (YJ-18), here again the advent of an indigenous, supersonic air-launched ASCM (YJ-12), together with a long-range subsonic air-launched ASCM (YJ-100) may create a formidable combination in the here and now that will only increase in lethality over the coming decade as these systems are further refined.Footnote 40 Moreover, Western strategists will need to keep in mind that China also will be looking to deploy a VSTOL strike-fighter,Footnote 41 an Osprey-like aircraft for transporting PLAN marines,Footnote 42 a variety of drones that may include a large aircraft carrier-launched drone similar to the American X-47, not to mention a long-range bomber to deliver strikes well beyond the second island chain. Much ink has been spilled in recent years regarding new and large-scale Chinese air strips built upon reefs in the South China Sea. Yet, these Chinese airbases are themselves exceedingly vulnerable to attack, even from smaller neighbours like Vietnam. Some Chinese analysts evidently do not evaluate these airbases as very significant in the overall military balance.Footnote 43
There is the issue, of course, that China's pilots are not battle tested in the way that their American counterparts have been. True enough, but then it is worth asking whether raids into Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria have taught American pilots the right instincts as there are hardly any air defence threats in these environments, let alone enemy aircraft to tangle with. It is more than a little odd that the RAND Scorecard study has a chapter on “Air Campaigns” (4) that concludes with the surreal caveat: “this analysis does not account for the problem of operating air bases under attack and may, therefore, understate the degree to which China could challenge US air superiority.”Footnote 44 For precisely this reason, their coding of “air superiority” as “parity” in the Taiwan scenario and a US advantage in a South China Sea scenario seems quite suspect and may reflect the subjective biases of that study's primary sponsor.
A very legitimate gripe against the present analysis is that it may artificially neglect critical seams between dimensions of naval warfare (air, surface, undersea, etc.). The problem is readily admitted, but one particular seam is of special concern. That seam connects air warfare with undersea warfare. For decades, the P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) has been an iconic symbol of US maritime might. They did not have the good looks to be featured in Top Gun, but they have a reputation as outstanding, reliable surveillance platforms and, more specifically, as perhaps the most effective submarine hunters in the US navy's arsenal. Indeed, the advent of the P-8 Poseidon MPA (the jet successor to the Orion) and its deployment to the Asia-Pacific region has seemed to herald a new era in US maritime supremacy. However, the preceding discussion of the aerial contest in a high-intensity war in the Western Pacific does not bode well for the Poseidon. This presents another significant flaw in the RAND Scorecard analysis, which models a US campaign to limit China's submarine attacks against US navy forces. The limits of the simulation results are plain when it is realized that “The model does not account for the loss of any US anti-submarine warfare assets.”Footnote 45 Indeed, large fixed-wing aircraft may be exceedingly vulnerable to missile attacks on forward bases in the early phases of a campaign.
The discussion below will attempt to inform our understanding of the shape of the undersea battle that might unfold between Chinese and US submarines; however, in closing this section, one can see the outlines of a disturbing possibility within this air–undersea seam: Chinese missile salvoes degrade US airbases enabling Chinese air superiority; Chinese air superiority prevents US and allied MPAs from searching out Chinese submarines that can then make a successful egress to initial operating areas; and, meanwhile, new-type Chinese MPAs working with a spate of Chinese anti-submarine warfare helicopters are relatively unhindered in their campaign against US submarines. Thus, missile power enables air power, which becomes the ultimate enabler for naval power.
Campaign 6: Undersea Warfare
We finally come to the heart of the matter. For the foreseeable future, submarines will form the “capital ship” of future navies. Unlike the air picture described above that is somewhat bleak from an American perspective, the emerging picture of undersea combat in the Asia-Pacific seems to reveal some substantial advantages for Washington. First and foremost, US submarines still appear to be much more capable (at least a decade ahead) in terms of propulsion, quieting, sensors and weaponry than the latest Chinese submarine classes. Underlining the salience of that advantage is the apparent weakness of China in the domain of anti-submarine warfare (ASW). Let us examine Chinese force developments in greater detail.
The sharpest spear in China's entire naval arsenal at present might be the Yuan-class conventional submarine. According to the 2014 report on the PLAN by the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Yuan-class has likely benefited from Russian quieting technology and also, unlike its Song-class predecessor, has air-independent propulsion, “increasing its underwater endurance, and therefore reducing its vulnerability to detection.”Footnote 46 The Office of Naval Intelligence report suggests that China has 12 Yuan in service, with eight more expected. It also makes the important observation that the Chinese navy seems to have finally found a conventional submarine design it is satisfied with and by focusing production on this single class may “streamline maintenance, training and interoperability.” That platform rounds out a force of 59 total diesel submarines currently in service with the PLAN. Most significantly perhaps, the Song and Yuan class now will deploy with the new YJ-18 supersonic ASCM. As previously noted, the 2015 US Defense Department's annual report to Congress on Chinese military development assessed the YJ-18 as having a range of 290 nautical miles, so that may amount to a near quadrupling of the attack range for most Chinese submarines against surface targets.Footnote 47 When considering undersea warfare in the Western Pacific, it is important to realize that diesel submarines can enjoy certain advantages including especially, but not limited to, their small size in shallow water environments.Footnote 48
However, an even more disquieting threat may lie just over the horizon. In early April 2014, a surprise announcement appeared curiously in the China Daily that “three cutting-edge nuclear-powered attack submarines have been manufactured and will soon be commissioned by the Chinese navy.”Footnote 49 According to the same report, “the Type-093G's wing-shaped cross-section is designed to improve speed and mobility as well as reduce noise, and that the vertical launcher is capable of delivering the country's latest YJ-18 supersonic anti-ship missile.” Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo 尹卓 (retired) is also quoted in the same piece saying that the new design would have “strong … counter submarine capabilities … [and is] also likely to be upgraded with the capability of striking land targets … in the near future.”Footnote 50 On that note, it is especially interesting that the Office of Naval Intelligence report cited above concludes: “China's submarines are not currently optimized for two missions at the core of US submarines – ASW and land attack.” Which assessment is correct, the reader may wonder? The most straightforward answer is likely both. The Office of Naval Intelligence assessment is accurate for the present and near term, but if we are looking at ten to twenty years hence, it seems quite probable that China will develop both these mission sets for the submarine force in a robust manner. The hints dropped by Admiral Yin are indeed supported by numerous other Chinese sources.Footnote 51 In spring 2014, China carried out its first ever deployment of a nuclear submarine to the Indian Ocean.Footnote 52 However, the Office of Naval Intelligence report was quite conservative with respect to future Chinese nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) development: “These six total submarines [093 + 093G] will replace the aging HAN class SSN on a nearly one-for-one basis in the next several years.” While it goes on to say that the follow-on Type 095 SSN will “provide a generational improvement in many areas such as quieting and weapon capacity,” it remains quite unclear at present whether the advent of these new capabilities will occasion an inflection point, wherein Beijing opts to field dozens of these capable vessels as opposed to the five or six that it currently operates.Footnote 53 China might well opt to keep its nuclear attack submarine fleet small – for cost-limiting reasons but also as a conscious effort to avoid antagonizing the United States. Nevertheless, if Chinese naval planners do opt for a gradual or even dramatic increase in the SSN fleet, that step, which could evolve over the coming two decades, might form the most significant metric of Beijing's ambitions to challenge Washington for naval mastery. In early 2017, several researchers from the Qingdao 青岛 Submarine Academy published an article that suggested the Chinese submarine force would be operating more and more often in the “far seas,” even extending operations into the Atlantic and Arctic oceans.Footnote 54 Operating further afield to defend China's “belt and road” initiative, the submarine force must actively prepare, according to these authors, for submarine-on-submarine engagements, to attack aircraft carrier battle groups, lay mines, counter ASW forces, deliver special forces, penetrate enemy harbours and operate near key ocean straits. Suggesting a possible coming reorientation of the force mix in the Chinese submarine force, they write emphatically that nuclear submarines “will form the ‘assassin's mace’ force of our navy's expansion into the deep oceans for defense combat.”Footnote 55 That paper was not the only recent Chinese source to hint at the option of overseas basing for Chinese submarines.Footnote 56
Of course, undersea warfare is not just a contest of submarines against submarines. As some experts have pointed out, moreover, it is conceivable, in a hypothetical US–China naval clash, that the two opposed submarine forces might simply “pass in the night” – each too quiet to be detected by the other – while continuing on with other priority missions, such as conducting land-attack strikes or anti-surface warfare. However, Western naval analysts have long maintained that China is extremely vulnerable in ASW, suggesting even that this warfare domain forms the “Achilles heel” of the PLAN. A typical rendering holds, for example, that China's standard indigenous naval helicopter, the Z-9, lacks the weaponry and sensors payload to be a serious ASW platform. That is all quite true, but it is worth noting that the outlines of a broad front effort to improve Chinese ASW across the board are already quite visible. A wide array of Chinese sources confirm that Beijing has deployed a network of fixed underwater sonar arrays in the “near seas.”Footnote 57 Several new aerial ASW platforms are either in development or about to go into serial production, including a new maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) GX-6, a new large sea plane (unveiled at the 2016 Zhuhai Air Show), as well as the large ASW-optimized helicopter Z-18, and the Chinese copy of the US navy's workhorse SH-60 called Z-20.Footnote 58 A new ASW missile-torpedo Yu-8 is also entering the fleet and will have a range of 30 km, with the possibility to extend that range further in the future.Footnote 59 It is nearly certain, moreover, that China will follow the US navy in deploying drones, aerial and undersea, for the ASW mission.Footnote 60 China's keen interest in unmanned platforms, many with ASW applications, was noted above in the section on surveillance. The likely increased salience of drone warfare in the Asia-Pacific seems to have been further revealed by China's rather impolite drone “snatch” during December 2016. Indeed, Chinese defence specialists are keeping very close tabs on some important US navy drone innovations such as the Sea Hunter robot anti-submarine unmanned surface vessel, which can go out on missions for sorties up to 10,000 miles or lasting 70 days.Footnote 61 A final major Chinese initiative in the domain of ASW is the impressive build rate for the Type 056 light frigate, discussed above, which is likely also related to the new priority on Chinese ASW development. Undoubtedly, this new priority is partially related to rapid submarine development by neighbours like Vietnam but also most certainly derives from the Chinese conclusion that the new carrier programme faces a daunting undersea threat from the submarines of the US and its allies.
Indeed, a rather macabre joke among Asia-Pacific maritime security specialists holds that each time the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning deploys out of port, it is stalked by a whole line of submarines from a variety of Asia-Pacific navies. So many are the submarines seeking to target her that they could actually be in danger of colliding into one another as they manoeuvre around her for that timely torpedo shot. This joke, however, betrays a larger reality, which is that most of China's neighbours on the maritime flank are investing heavily in their submarine fleets for the rather clear purpose of deterring Beijing. Chinese naval planners, moreover, are experienced enough with the Russian Kilo-class to realize that such vessels in the Vietnam navy constitute a significant potential challenge to the PLAN even in the near term.Footnote 62
Chinese strategists, moreover, view the US submarine force as constituting a major threat.Footnote 63 The basing of US submarines at Guam, their visible and frequent forays into the “near seas,” as well as the appearance of relatively new capabilities such as the SSGN (cruise missile submarine) in sea areas proximate to China have all raised concerns in Chinese military circles. From the American perspective, these strategic initiatives obviously aim primarily at deterrence. As stated at the outset of this section, there are many reasons to believe that the US submarine force is well positioned to cope with any contingency discussed in this paper's introduction. It is an elite force that has had the benefit of decades of realistic training against the Soviet/Russian navy. American submarines are known for speed, quieting and their formidable mix of weapons. It is within the realm of possibility that the US submarine force, practically on its own, could send the entire Chinese fleet to the bottom of the sea.
Nevertheless, it may also be a mistake to overestimate the role of the US submarine force in a hypothetical US–China maritime conflict. Among the challenges facing that force are a reduced number of boats. Indeed, the US navy's nuclear attack fleet is slated to reach a low of 41 boats around 2028 – a trend that Chinese strategists are quite aware of.Footnote 64 There is also a host of operational and tactical problems confronting US submarine commanders, including shallow waters, constricted passages and the imperative to protect high value US surface ships such as aircraft carriers. Another major problem concerns the relatively small magazines carried by submarines. If Chinese missile strikes succeed in damaging US base infrastructure in theatre, where will American submarines go to reload their weapons’ stocks and how might that impact their deployment schedule? Over the next two decades, the US navy will have to contend with a Chinese navy that is becoming more proficient at ASW – a long journey to be sure. The RAND Scorecard study does model a campaign by eight US submarines to try to halt a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan. It concludes that almost a quarter of US submarines (two) would be lost in that seven-day campaign owing to “Chinese air-based anti-submarine forces.” Unfortunately, this basic model may also underestimate US submarine losses, as discussed in more detail below. Indeed, it would be foolhardy to assume that the PLAN cannot develop a certain level of competence in ASW. Even now, a significant threat to US navy submarine operations is also the problem of Chinese sea mines.
Campaign 7: Mine Warfare
Sea mines are a cheap and likely effective tool in modern naval warfare. True, unmanned underwater vehicle technology has steered counter-mine strategy towards “mine-hunting” as opposed to traditional mine-sweeping, but it is far from clear that the threat from mines has been eliminated or even significantly mitigated by new technologies. To the contrary, it seems quite possible that the “weapons that wait” may yet again outpace attempts to constrain their use.
Sea mines are a good fit with Chinese strategic culture given the asymmetric warfare characteristics of their employment. Chinese naval strategists are aware that in “the Korean War during 1950–53, the US navy suffered the worst loss from mine attack with 10 ships sunk and six damaged.”Footnote 65 Likewise, they also understand that Iraqi sea mines posed significant challenges for the US navy during the Persian Gulf War.Footnote 66 It is recognized that aircraft and submarines are the preferred methods for sea mine delivery but, as related in an interview with a Qingdao Submarine Academy professor, refitted fishing boats can also be used to place mines.Footnote 67 The same interview also noted the possibility of using “specialized external conformal apparatus” (zhuanmen de waigua zhuangzhi 专门的外挂装置) to increase a submarine's mine payload by a factor of one to two times.Footnote 68 There is additionally a pattern of submarine mine-laying exercises that is readily visible in the PLAN.Footnote 69 Moreover, China seems to be working on developing some of the world's most advanced sea mines, including potentially a “water-exit attack sea mine” (chushui gongji shuilei 出水攻击水雷) capable of shooting down aircraft.Footnote 70 One of the most bizarre and disturbing problems with the RAND Scorecard study is its neglect of mine warfare. Oddly, a diagram (8.2) does illustrate US submarines penetrating through Chinese mine fields in a Taiwan scenario, but there is inexplicably no discussion in the text of how this would occur in practice nor any mention of possible US submarine losses owing to mines. That is an especially troubling omission since China has prioritized mine warfare and this may form the most difficult challenge for US submarines operating in and around the first island chain.
On the other hand, it must also be recognized that there is still ample concern in Chinese naval circles that mine warfare could be employed effectively against China by its adversaries.Footnote 71 US mine warfare capabilities have never been especially robust, in part owing to a hope that allies would contribute the requisite capabilities. Chinese analysts are aware that Japan is relatively strong in mine countermeasures and follow new Japanese capabilities, such as the S10 mine-hunting robot, with great interest. American mine-countermeasure capabilities may be insufficient since dedicated mine-countermeasure ships (for example, the Guardian-class) are being phased out, while the Littoral Combat Ship has yet to prove itself in this domain of warfare. Moreover, US naval doctrine has tended to favour helicopter mine countermeasures, and it is not clear that such operations would be feasible in the “hot” contested air environment of the Western Pacific during a hypothetical US–China naval conflict. The US navy has tried to maintain some offensive mine warfare capabilities and has even exercised with the US air force to demonstrate an ability to lay mines with long-range bombers in the Western Pacific. Still, such operations, attempted in contested airspace, will also prove quite risky in the coming decades as China continues to upgrade its offshore air defence. Mine warfare is likely to favour China in the near future given the PLAN's cultural affinity and also various geographical advantages.
Campaign 8: Convoy Warfare
This campaign undoubtedly involves elements of nearly all the domains of combat described above. Submarine warfare, surface warfare, air warfare, and even missile warfare could hypothetically figure in the ever challenging efforts to keep frontline forces supplied and thus fighting effectively. One may better understand the importance of modern military logistics by appreciating that a single submarine or frigate only carries a few dozen weapons, all of which could be entirely depleted in a few days or maybe even in a few hours of high intensity combat. Access to fuel, munitions and repair facilities will be no less important in modern combat than it has been historically, and it might even be more important.
One can readily imagine several distressing convoy operations for both Beijing and Washington in a hypothetical naval conflict between the superpowers. In the context of the much-discussed “Malacca Dilemma,” China confronts the potentially immense challenge of trying to transport oil from the Persian Gulf or Africa to China in wartime. Indeed, that single stressful scenario could explain much of the PLAN build-up over the last decade, including the perceived need for multiple aircraft carrier groups. While many Western naval analysts may scoff at China's ambition in this respect, Beijing might have a slightly less daunting task if it could deploy air and missile power into the eastern Indian Ocean or if it strikes against the US base at Diego Garcia. Nevertheless, it still seems difficult to imagine how China could possibly defend tankers coming through both Hormuz and Malacca during the two decades that are considered in this study. But leading Chinese naval strategists continue to highlight the “Malacca Dilemma” now despite the fact that defence of the “maritime silk road” forms a major rationale for China's naval build-up.Footnote 72 US supply lines could also come under heavy attack from Chinese forces. Indeed, Chinese strategists have noted that one of reasons the Japanese navy failed against the US navy in the Second World War was that it did not follow a “destroy transport” (po jiao 破交) doctrine to aggressively attack US navy supply lines.Footnote 73 US supply lines may ultimately be longer when weighed in the aggregate, but one must also keep in mind that the US navy has ample experience with convoy operations, even if this experience was gained more than half a century ago.
Campaign 9: Amphibious Warfare
Some strategists have declared “beach assault” to be an obsolete aspect of modern naval warfare. But, if one considers the Falklands War campaign to be the last episode of high-intensity naval warfare, one can see that amphibious warfare played an extraordinary role in that conflict, so it seems unwise to exclude it from this analysis. Trends in Chinese amphibious warfare development point in various directions. Certainly, there is a general tendency towards fielding more high-tech and professional forces. As many as four Type 071 landing ships are now in service with the PLAN and they have some cutting-edge capabilities, such as the ability to deploy air-cushion landing craft. Last year, the PLAN also demonstrated a capability to fly new-type ground forces attack helicopters (Z-10) from ships. Bringing that kind of firepower over the beach to back up assault troops could form a significant force multiplier. Another innovation the PLAN is experimenting with is a large Zubr air-cushioned landing craft imported from the Ukraine; the Chinese navy has also produced an indigenous copy. The PLAN has also continued to experiment with small and cheap, yet innovative, designs for bringing heavy tanks onto a beach.Footnote 74 In addition, there is a PLA ground forces transport ship that has been produced: possibly a sign that the PLAN could be divesting itself (in part) of the amphibious warfare mission. On the other hand, Beijing has not gone in for a massive build-up in amphibious warships either. The much anticipated Type 081 helicopter carrier programme has yet to reveal even a prototype, which may imply a lack of urgency or a singular focus on aircraft carriers instead. It is important to understand that Beijing could accelerate amphibious warfare development, but for now, capabilities remain rather limited. However, the revelation in spring 2017 that China will apparently significantly expand the size of its marine units could represent a major inflection point in the development of Chinese amphibious warfare.Footnote 75 The RAND Scorecard study does model a Chinese amphibious attack against Taiwan and concludes that the US retains an advantage through 2017. That study does not mention many of the new capabilities discussed above.Footnote 76 While emphasizing large decks, such as Type 071 and Type 081 that might make fine targets, the conclusions may be increasingly dubious when one considers unconventional modes for transporting troops and equipment across the Strait, namely the wide use of small-scale merchant/fishing vessels. Another mode of attack assumed to be out of the amphibious attack model is a PLA effort to seize a couple of key airports (relying on special forces) followed by a large scale airlift relying on China's new fleet of heavy air transports. However, if we put the Taiwan scenario aside for a moment, one could still see how small “shock” amphibious units could still be very useful in a naval campaign for the purpose of easing the egress of the PLAN, for example through the tight passages in the Ryukyu Islands chain.
US amphibious capabilities remain quantitatively and qualitatively superior. As discussed above, the advent of the new VSTOL F-35B for the marine corps seems like a good fit for a region with tens of thousands of islands and atolls as potential rugged, forward staging areas. It seems a little less clear what role amphibious attack ships, Osprey transports, and ground troops could play in an unfolding US–China naval conflict in the wider Pacific. Outside of trying to protect the “lily pads” for forward F-35B operations, those forces would seem to be highly vulnerable to the gamut of Chinese forces, whether missiles, submarines, aircraft or even marauding surface vessels such as the Type 022 FAC. The most likely missions for marines in such a hypothetical conflict could be going ashore on Taiwan or attempting to wrest back small island features that China has seized for its own advanced bases. These missions could prove to be extremely costly – to the point of being infeasible – especially as it seems likely that they would take place well within the range of Chinese missiles and land-based aircraft.
Campaign 10: Nuclear Warfare
Nuclear warfare is often excluded in analyses of US–China armed conflict. That may reflect the reasonable conclusion that the nuclear “taboo” is strong, that national leaders on both sides are sufficiently rational enough to control escalation, or that there is no precedent for nuclear warfare between two nuclear-armed powers so the calculus is simply too complex and unpredictable. Most likely during the last decade, China crossed definitively over the threshold to wield truly survivable second-strike nuclear forces. The weapon that carried China across that threshold is probably the DF-31 road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Deployment of a longer-range road mobile ICBM, the DF-41, also appears to be imminent. In a disquieting set of circumstances, Beijing seems to have flashed that particular sabre during the growing US–China tensions in January 2017.Footnote 77 Another significant development in this domain concerns Chinese deployment of multiple independently re-targetable vehicles on its latest generation of long-range missiles.Footnote 78
There is a substantial naval component to China's ongoing nuclear force modernization. Four new Type 094 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) have been launched over the last decade, providing China with its second-generation “boomer” capability. These submarines are not likely to be on a par with their US equivalents, either in terms of quieting, sensors, weapons’ range, safety or reliability. Moreover, given robust US undersea capabilities discussed above, these systems may remain somewhat vulnerable to US interdiction. Hints of a nascent “cat-and-mouse” game involving Chinese SSBNs have already appeared in Chinese naval writings.Footnote 79 Indeed, SSBN operations (and counter-operations) may form an underappreciated cause of current tensions in the South China Sea, since Beijing has sought to deploy the 094s from its new base at Yalong Bay 亚龙湾 on Hainan Island. A 2016 analysis of Chinese SSBN operations by one of China's foremost nuclear strategy experts yields that Beijing has indeed begun nuclear deterrence patrols and the point is made that the South Pacific will provide the optimal patrol area for Chinese SSBN operations.Footnote 80 Over the next two decades, the PLAN is certain to improve its proficiency with SSBN operations so that they form a stronger complement to the already significant land-based missiles.
A major Chinese nuclear build-up cannot quite be ruled out entirely, even if that is unlikely given China's strategic culture and its long-time adherence to the “minimal deterrent.” However, Chinese nuclear strategy could also develop in other destabilizing directions. For example, Chinese strategists are actively discussing the history and strategic value of tactical nuclear weapons.Footnote 81 During the middle period of the Cold War, naval tactical nuclear weapons were viewed on both sides as a way to manage difficult ASW operations. Another highly destabilizing possibility would be the advent of a Chinese nuclear-armed submarine launched cruise missile that could be fired from practically any type of Chinese submarine. On the whole, of course, the US remains vastly superior in all dimensions of nuclear operations. As the RAND Scorecard study observes, “Even by 2017 … US warheads will outnumber China's by at least 13 to one.”Footnote 82 That could indeed form a desirable point of leverage for Washington during a crisis or amid low-level combat operations. Still, as President John Kennedy came to learn in the Cuban Missile Crisis more than a half century ago, a situation of vast nuclear superiority does not necessarily spare your own country from devastating attack and therefore may be of limited utility.
Conclusion
Most studies of the military balance in the Asia-Pacific region agree that it is shifting. However, analysts disagree on the pace of the shift and also whether the shift could turn decisively to favour Beijing; however, the conventional wisdom holds that such a decisive turn would occur far into the future, if ever. This author is concerned that most Western analyses are unduly “optimistic” and tend to discount emerging Chinese capabilities. As discussed briefly above, for example, a common error in Western analyses is the conclusion that combat experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans, etc. means that US forces are experienced, whereas Chinese forces lack combat experience altogether. However, it is amply clear that military operations appropriate to counter-insurgency (for example, drone strikes, security sweeps, target extraction, facility and road security) are unlikely to be relevant in high-intensity combat against a near-peer competitor.Footnote 83
According to the analysis above, the US retains a strong advantage in certain warfare domains including surveillance, convoy protection and amphibious assault. According to this author's estimate, the most critical enabling campaign of all, undersea warfare, also remains quite firmly in the American grasp, although some caveats have been noted above. And yet, the assumption that the US military has a decisive advantage in the relevant scenarios remains very much in question. That is primarily because of the potentially devastating blow against US and allied bases that could be delivered by PLA missile forces. As explained above, these missile strikes could provide China's large air forces with something close to “aerial supremacy” for a considerable period of time – potentially long enough to achieve Beijing's strategic objectives or at least force a bloody stalemate. Moreover, a PRC advantage in the use of offensive mine warfare, when combined with the PLA's ability to prevent US and allied aerial ASW from flying, could combine to roll back, or at least significantly inhibit, Washington's heretofore substantial undersea advantage. At that point, both the victor and the final endpoint of a US–China naval confrontation become genuine unknowns. At least, it can be valuable, as Donald Rumsfeld famously said, to know the “unknowns.”
Chinese strategists have long opined that the PRC lacked military might. At long last, they seem to see a glimmer of light on the horizon as new weaponry, such as the DF21D and the YJ-18 missiles, enter the arsenal. This new confidence was reflected in a statement made recently by Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo: “If in the future, there is US–China conflict, then it will likely take place on China's doorstep. Speaking bluntly, fighting on our doorstep, we fear no one.”Footnote 84 Many Westerners might dismiss this statement as bluster, but thoughtful strategists will understand that there is a powerful (if unpalatable from the American perspective) truth in Admiral Yin's observation because of the immense distances that span the Asia-Pacific and the inherent advantages of interior lines in strategy.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to express his deep gratitude to James Char and Richard A. Bitzinger for their great support on this manuscript.
Biographical note
Lyle J. Goldstein is professor of strategy in the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the US Naval War College. He was the founding director of CMSI, 2006–2011. For that service, he received the Superior Civilian Service Medal in 2012. His research on China has focused primarily on Chinese maritime development with a special focus on Chinese undersea warfare. His work on undersea warfare has been presented multiple times at the annual submarine research conference in Groton. He has also written extensively on the larger strategic issues in US–China relations, including Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US–China Rivalry (2015, Georgetown University Press). In addition to Chinese, Goldstein also speaks Russian and accompanied the president of the Naval War College to St. Petersburg in 2005 as translator/negotiator. He chaired the Ukraine Crisis Group at the Naval War College in 2014 and led the “Russia Futures Project” in 2015–2016. His present research projects include the future of Russia–China relations, Chinese underwater drone technology development, and the evolution of the North Korea nuclear crisis.
Appendix
Note on Mandarin-language sources for the study of Chinese naval development
This study relies to a large extent on Chinese naval magazines such as Jianchuan zhishi 舰船知识 (Naval and Merchant Ships), Xiandai jianchuan 现代舰船 (Modern Ships) and Jianzai wuqi 舰载武器 (Shipborne Weapons). These magazines are published by the Chinese military shipbuilding industry, and in particular, the China State Shipbuilding Corporation and China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation. These industry giants are responsible for producing the vast majority of Chinese warships. Therefore, these publications, not surprisingly, have direct insights into what ships are currently under development or soon will be. In addition, they serve as a crucial “reality check” on the abstract military theorizing that may occur at Chinese military academies or in the Ministry of Defence. Unlike some Chinese military-related sources that are unduly coloured by ideology, the articles in these publications focus rather narrowly on technical developments relevant to naval warfare, as well as related tactics/operations/strategy issues. Shipbuilders are where the “rubber meets the road” and their viewpoints should be taken especially seriously. Indeed, since extensive resources are at stake in shipbuilding decisions, these information outlets have major incentives to publish accurate and detailed studies. Yet, regrettably, such valuable sources have often been neglected by Western defence analysts. The reason given most often is that such sources are not “official Chinese navy sources.” However, that approach is extremely short-sighted and fails to account for the complexity of the publishing industry in contemporary China. Even in the US, official government magazines and journals are frequently significantly less enlightening than those defence publications that are closer to the private sector, and the same is true in China. Finally, there is significant evidence of informal Chinese navy linkages to these publications, for example the monthly column in the magazine Modern Ships of PLAN Captain Li Jie 李杰 of the PLAN Navy Research Center in Beijing.
