An interesting perspective from the The Diplomat Magazine on Chinese naval expansion. Thanks to Alaric Bond for passing it along.
Why China’s Naval Rise Could Help the World
Foreign observers of China’s growing naval prowess might be worried by what they’ve seen in recent years. Around a hundred new warships have come off the country’s slipways since 2001, while another dozen are under construction. Chinese ships are, on average, getting bigger and more powerful as well as more numerous as Beijing builds what is shaping up to be the world’s biggest submarine fleet, as well as new types of anti-ship missiles and the nation’s first aircraft carriers. One older Russian carrier is being refurbished and US analysts expect the first fully home-built Chinese carrier to enter service by 2015, with the possibility of more to follow.
All this is a far cry from the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s status even a decade ago as a coastal weakling, and has come at a time when the US Navy has actually shrunk by around 10 percent, as several new ship classes arrived late and over-budget. As a result of China’s rise and its own budgetary problems, ‘the United States will inevitably have to face…a progressive loss of maritime supremacy in the South China Sea and its environs,’ Andrew Davies, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told The Diplomat.
But observers say a shifting balance of power doesn’t have to mean high tensions, let alone open warfare. Much of what China does in the maritime realm amounts to an elaborate, and expensive, form of diplomatic theatre. Carriers, especially, are more for show than for practical military use, analysts say. Where the People’s Republic of China is building real naval capabilities, most are actually best suited for cooperating, rather than competing, with other world powers.