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New
Delhi, 07 September 2006
China's has
emerged as a major economic and political power. With growing
military strength it is now an important player on the world’s stage
but critically so in Asia. USA, the sole super power perceives it
with close interest and as a matter of concern, especially in the
context of Taiwan, Japan and S Korea. Many Pentagon analysts believe
China's military buildup is taking place faster than earlier
estimates, and that China will use its power to project force and
undermine US and regional security. A US military Southern Command
report in the late 1990s warned that China was seeking to use
commercial port facilities around the world to control strategic
"chokepoints." A Chinese company with close ties to Beijing's
communist rulers holds long-term leases on port facilities at either
end of the Panama Canal. China, by militarily controlling oil
shipping sea lanes, could threaten ships, thereby creating a climate
of uncertainty about the safety of all ships on the high seas,
especially along the sea routes from the Persian Gulf to the South
China Sea.
On the other
hand, China fears the US military will disrupt its energy imports in
any conflict over Taiwan, and sees the United States as an
unpredictable country that violates others' sovereignty and wants to
"encircle" China. The recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as also
the US political manoeuvres in Central Asia were undeniable
indications of this. For Beijing access to oil and gas resources are
vital to China’s economic growth and any impediment to it could
cause instability and ultimately the collapse of their nation of 1.3
billion people.
Energy demand,
particularly for oil, will increase sharply in the next 20 years —
from 75 million barrels per day in 2003 to 120 million barrels in
2025 — with Asia consuming 80 percent of the added 45 million
barrels. Eighty percent of China's oil currently passes through the
Straits of Malacca, and China believes the sea area is "controlled
by the US Navy." Chinese President Hu Jintao recently stated that
China faces a "Malacca Dilemma" — the vulnerability of its oil
supply lines from the Middle East and Africa to disruption. Chinese
specialists believe the United States has the military capability to
cut off their oil imports and could "severely cripple" China by
blocking its energy supplies.
At a
Congressional hearing in February this year, US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said that the growth of the Chinese navy was an
issue that the Pentagon "thinks about and is concerned about and is
attentive to".
China’s naval modernization thus has potential implications for the
required US Navy capabilities in terms of preparing for a conflict
in the Taiwan Strait area, maintaining US Navy presence and military
influence in the Western Pacific, and countering Chinese ballistic
missile submarines. Preparing for a conflict in the Taiwan Straits
area could place a premium on early arrival of Naval forces and
capabilities for defeating China’s maritime anti-access forces in
the area. The possibilities for indulging in information warfare,
electromagnetic pulse (EMP) emissions and the use of nuclear weapons
cannot be ruled out. China’s naval modernization raises potential
issues for US military planners in regard to the size of the Navy;
the Pacific Fleet’s share of the Navy; forward home-porting of Navy
ships in the Western Pacific; the number of aircraft carriers,
submarines, and ASW-capable platforms; Navy missile defense,
air-warfare, AAW, ASW, and mine warfare programmes; Navy computer
network security; and EMP hardening of Navy systems.
China
has long been seeking an outlet to the Indian Ocean to safeguard its
energy sea-lanes from the Persian Gulf and its markets in the
region. After decades of evolving relations, Beijing and Islamabad
had cemented their strategic links. Their cooperation now covers
almost all facets of economy, energy, industry, and infrastructure,
with nuclear and military cooperation at its core. Similarly, the
Chinese diplomatic and military efforts in Myanmar also exhibit a
conspicuous policy of power projection against competitors like USA
and India. Chinese strategists, maritime planners and practitioners
have closely watched the growth in Indo–US maritime cooperation, and
believe that the two are attempting to counter China's regional
influence.
Given
the Chinese creeping assertiveness in the Indian Ocean based on its
politico-military and economic initiatives, it is fair to argue that
there could be a clash of interests between New Delhi and Beijing.
In that context, in the naval realm, clashes may take place under
two scenarios. First, if India becomes part of a larger US-led
coalition aimed at containing China, there could then emerge a
possibility of the two navies being drawn into confrontation. In the
second scenario, the Indian Navy may come face to face with the
Chinese Navy in the event of formation of a strategic alliance among
China, Pakistan and Myanmar.
India’s relations with China have a long history of ups and downs
and in some ways, the ups were really a long time ago –– in the
50’s, and till the late 80’s they were stuck in a deep and long
rift-valley. Since then, there has been significant and positive
surface movement –– the 1993 agreement on maintaining peace and
tranquility along the Line of Actual Control; the 1996 protocol on
military confidence building measures; the 2002 agreement on
providing a political push to settling the border problem; the 2005
agreement on political parameters and guiding principles for
settling the dispute; as well as several economic and cultural
agreements leading to the recent opening of the Nathu La–Lhasa trade
route. But beneath the surface there remain misgivings in India
because of China’s policy in the neighbourhood specifically
vis-à-vis Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar. The future
developments in Sino–Indian relations cannot overlook the substance
of such misgivings.
In
a purely military context, capabilities matter since intentions are
difficult to determine and could quickly change. Hence both India
and USA while feathering their respective economic interests to the
extent practicable have no option but to take care of the strategic
and security factors of China’s emerging power.
Some analysts feel Pentagon’s approach to China is not very
different from what it was with the erstwhile Soviet Union. With
clever juxtaposition of fact and fiction and an unquestioning media,
it managed to show that the slowly imploding USSR was much stronger
than it actually was. For its MIC to trundle on, the US needs a
bogey of threats and China with its inscrutable but confident
pursuit of economic and military power presents itself as a future
devil for the American self interests. However, in the foreseeable
two decades China is not likely to be anywhere close to the Soviet
military might of the Eighties. A more dispassionate view of China’s
politico-military ambitions implies that its build up is oriented
not so much towards Japan, or the US and India but the ‘rebel
province of Taiwan’ and future energy security. It is still far
short of the capability to simply roll it over and therefore may not
risk a war over Taiwan which is its largest source of FDI and where
the US will almost certainly intervene. A look at China’s trade
figures with USA makes it clear that any breakdown of their
relations would be overwhelmingly more destructive for China than
for the USA.
All the same, both India and US need to understand and assess the
nature of Chinese power both as a friend and potential foe. With
Tibet now being connected through modern means of roads and railway,
China now poses as India’s immediate neighbour. While making all
efforts to develop friendly relations for mutual economic good, it
would be prudent for India to be careful of any ill designs and
therefore be prepared to militarily repel any threat that may either
come across the northern mountains or through the possible naval
bases in Myanmar and Pakistan. The pros and cons of an opportunity
for future good as also a threat have to be constantly looked at and
taken into account in formulation of mutual relations with China.
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