Sea lanes, BRI central to China’s strategy

Without doubt, today’s naval game is between the US and China’s PLA Navy in the western Pacific Ocean, which indisputably was the ‘Lake of America’ post World War-II, deployment of Soviet submarines during the Cold War notwithstanding. However, defence experts have identified severe defects in the US system which severely diminished the strength of its navy.

Changing equation: The US had replaced Great Britain’s pre-eminence at sea only to now confront a formidable challenge from China in the ocean. Reuters

Abhijit Bhattacharyya

Commentator and Author

As many as 76 years after US air power compelled Japanese sea power to unconditionally surrender by dropping atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, another August — in the 21st century — is seeing a mega escalation of tension and deployment of a fleet of combat vessels of the Australasian-American combination in the Indo-Pacific region. Purportedly, the July 2021 declaration of British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace suggests that the aim of deployment is: “We are committed to working with partners (in Indo-Pacific region) to defend democratic values, tackle shared threats and keep our nations safe.”

That sounds lofty, subject, however, to clarification pertaining to lack of definition or explanation. What are ‘democratic values’? How does one assess ‘shared threats’? Do ‘democratic values’ imply non-existence of ‘non-democratic values’? How many countries follow one and eschew the other? Aside, what are ‘shared threats’? Are these threats to economy, military, territory, sovereignty, trade, commerce, polity, air, water or cyberspace?

Whereas the deployment of the navies of the US, Japan, Australia and India till now lacks solidity (despite verbal solidarity), except for some ‘exercise’ here and there, the fresh entry of the UK, Germany, France and New Zealand has one fundamental commonality. All of them are deploying their forces far from their home base, several thousand kilometres away. Secondly, all heavily depend on bilateral trade/commerce with China. And thirdly, China has already entered deep into their economy, commerce, trade and industry through mass-scale indigenous production, thereby making herself a virtual monopoly producer-cum-supplier of essential, non-essential as well as critical finished and consumer goods.

How do then things play out? Owing to Chinese opaqueness? Reportedly, the real reason for all these dramatic deployment owes essentially to “Beijing’s militarisation”. That’s understandable. But can a rival’s militarisation, all by itself, be the sole cause of a potentially imminent and inevitable kinetic action on the waterfront? Is the militarisation of the ocean by the Communist Party of China (CPC) something new? Has it happened overnight? If not, then what were those deploying their battleships to ‘curb’ the Beijing flotilla today, doing thus far? Let’s do a rudimentary exploration of the scenario of naval expansion and expedition in the Indo-Pacific.

Without doubt, today’s naval game is between the US and the CPC-controlled PLA Navy in the western Pacific Ocean which indisputably was the ‘Lake of America’ post Second World War, deployment of Soviet submarines during the Cold War (1950-1991) notwithstanding. It was the age of Yankee Gulliver’s blue-water navy, surrounded by mud-water tiny deployable boats of the CPC coast guard.

The US could then boast of being the sole super sea power state, under President Ronald Reagan (1980s) when the Soviets were busy fighting a Vietnam-type war in the deathtrap, landlocked terrain of Afghanistan wherein Moscow had no use for its formidable fleet. By now, the USA had replaced Great Britain’s position of pre-Second World War “sea command and control” naval power.

After 30 years, however, one of the principal architects of the US navy doesn’t feel much about his country’s state of preparedness facing the Beijing fleet in its back bay. John F. Lehman, US Navy Secretary (1981-87), promoter of the idea of 600-ship navy, is dismayed. His words sound melancholic. “After a succession of Presidents ignorant of and uninterested in naval affairs, there’s an emerging realisation around the world that the US no longer possesses naval superiority and could lose a war at sea... It’s a result of... decades of catastrophic mismanagement.”

In fact, several prominent public figures of the US too hold a dim view of their once mighty fleet arm. They have identified severe defects in the US system which not only stymied the strategic role, but severely diminished the strength of its navy. It is owing to several generations of “lacklustre naval leaders” that the naval supremacy has dwindled dramatically. The American apprehension is so acute that Lt General David Nahom of the air force told the Congress: “China offensive threat is growing faster than projected. The threat is accelerating much more than we thought back in 2018.”

Is the US General right? No, he isn’t fully right. The decay began more than three decades ago. Thanks to complacent “democratic” world, led by the US’s monumental misjudgment to detect, confront and curb the secret and steady rise of an ‘autocratic’ CPC. It was all cash, commerce, capital and profit for the ‘democratic world’, convinced by one ‘autocratic’ state.

Warnings came from Jane’s Fighting Ships 1987-88: “The importance of the Pacific area as a strategic centre is slowly percolating into European minds... Any passage between Vladivostok and the South China Sea passes the doorsteps of Chinese navy... The Chinese naval air force and marine corps outnumber the total British naval personnel... The modernisation of Chinese navy is gathering momentum.”

Jane’s Fighting Ships 1988-89 gave another advance info: “Of all the world’s navies, the most difficult to assess is the Chinese. Decades of isolationism combined with preoccupation with coastal defence have restricted things. Yet, if a navy employs three hundred thousand people...it is a shame that it’s so difficult to acquire reliable information.”

Nevertheless, as “China now is willing to embrace more western technology, it is to be hoped that she will assist in giving a more accurate account of an expanding navy of which she can be justifiably proud, but which has a lot of catching up to do to achieve the Western standards of operational effectiveness”.

How misguided were the world’s ‘democratic’ nations which now regret their collective myopia and misjudgment, having woken up when water flows not under the hull of the fleet, but the waves pass overhead!

Now, let New Delhi also hear the wailing Tony Abbott, the former Australian PM who hosted CPC supremo Xi Jinping in 2014 and concluded the Canberra-Beijing bilateral free trade deal in 2015.

He wrote in The Australian: “China exploited West’s goodwill and wishful thinking to steal our technology and undercut industries...The basic problem is that China’s daunting power is a consequence of the free world’s decision to invite a communist dictatorship into global trading networks... In the process, China became much more powerful than the old Soviet Union ever was, because it is now rapidly developing a military, and spoiling for a fight over Taiwan.”

Is it better late than never? Is it ‘late’ or is it ‘never’? Hope, looking only at the sea doesn’t result in a debacle in the Asian heartland? As was thought of by US Naval Secretary John F. Lehman in the 1980s? To counter or attack the Soviet Union through the Siberian land-front, to penetrate the main Leningrad-Moscow-Stalingrad axis! So, ‘democracy’ needs be careful. Just as Taiwan, the South China Sea axis is the CPC fulcrum, the heartland Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) too cannot be ignored by the free world.