The Challenge of China's Rising Power on the Seas

 "Whether or not America has entered a new Cold War -- or whether "Cold War" is the right reference point for contemporary geopolitics -- it's clear that the U.S. is in a new arms race with China. But unlike the long, visible struggle with the Soviets, where land armies in Europe were the front lines and the prospect of intercontinental nuclear strikes loomed, today's arms race has been concentrated mostly out of public view, at sea.

Its pivotal geography is the Western Pacific, that vast stretch of water west of Hawaii. The Luzon Strait, which connects the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea, has replaced the Fulda Gap that straddled East and West Germany as the most critically tense piece of geography in the world. If war breaks out on the oceans, perhaps triggered by a crisis over Taiwan, it's mostly likely to start there.

During the long post-Cold War period, we became accustomed to thinking of the oceans as a more or less benign global commons. But today they are rapidly returning to the role that they played during the Age of Empire: a zone for competition in commercial development, science, and above all, naval power.

The U.S. still has the more powerful and advanced navy in aggregate. It can also count on help from several allies and partners, including Japan and, increasingly, India. Just this week, the U.S. moved to boost its coordinated position in the Western Pacific by announcing a new security partnership with the U.K. and Australia, dubbed AUKUS, whose first task is to help Australia build nuclear-powered submarines.

Overall naval supremacy is surely beyond China's grasp, and while it may get some help from the Russian navy, its other friends at sea are limited. And given China's huge stakes in the flow of energy and goods through its bordering waters, one could argue that its naval ambitions are purely defensive. But its naval strength in Asia is formidable and its reach is growing; China can certainly pose an effective military counterweight to the U.S., especially in its own backyard. That alone is plenty to worry about.

The seaborne arms race has gone largely unacknowledged outside the world of military strategists, but that does not make it any less real or dangerous. For the U.S., the contest already has spurred a retooling of the military's forward presence in Asia. The shift includes more frequent ship movements; investment in advanced radar and missile detection technologies, including trials of missile-intercept systems that cost upward of $200 million per test; and an expansion of America's nuclear submarine fleet, including the allocation of $22.2 billion for nine new nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarines -- the Navy's largest shipbuilding contract ever.

China is also pushing ahead. It has embarked on an expensive shipbuilding operation while investing in the cutting-edge information and communications systems necessary to manage a fleet with near-global reach. Meanwhile, it has expanded its antiship missile program.

Military planning by both countries now also includes strategic anti-submarine warfare -- the use of nuclear depth charges or even nuclear barrages at sea to defend against submarine strikes. China could potentially use such weapons to block U.S. submarines from passing through the Luzon Strait.

Both sides, in short, are developing huge, advanced weapons systems with the capability to destroy navies, kill thousands and intimidate geopolitical opponents.

What's at stake is not just naval power but the struggle for dominance in global trade. The now-overused term "globalization" conjures images of jet-speed air transport and of industries that need little or no freight, such as technology services. But fully 85% of world trade still involves moving goods by sea-bound in huge "roll-on, roll-off" car transports, bulk carriers, oil and gas tankers and mega-container ships.

China has emerged as the world's largest sea-trading nation by a large measure, and it is setting its sights on the other instruments of sea power beyond its naval forces, including a global network of ports (some of them potential naval bases). While the precise scale of China's naval ambition is hotly debated, its navy makes no secret of its aim to be able to operate in what former naval chief Adm. Wu Shengli called "the far seas" -- the Arctic, Indian and wider Pacific -- as well as closer to home.

China's navy recently deployed its first optical cable-laying ship, and undersea cables also form a vital part of China's detection systems in the South China Sea. Such connections are essential to cutting-edge industries and much of modern life. Fully 93% of all data -- whether iPhone photos, emails, software updates or industrial and military information -- flow underwater, in cables strung across the sea bed. (Satellites, though important, cannot handle the immense traffic of data.)

The cables are also crucial in modern naval warfare, which is bound up in big data, large-scale remote sensing and the application of artificial intelligence to military technologies -- what the Chinese call "informationized warfare" and the U.S. refers to as "systems warfare." Attacking one part of this vast undersea network could potentially disrupt the whole system, which is one reason that a clash between the U.S. and China at sea would be unlikely to remain limited to that geography. What starts in the Western Pacific won't -- can't -- stay in the Western Pacific.

Global energy flows also depend on stability on the high seas. The common perception of oil and gas production still focuses on rigs in Texas and Saudi Arabia or on Russia's land pipeline to Germany, but more than 70% of oil and gas is either found at sea or transported by sea, largely via Asian ports. This matters for all the major Asian economies, including Japan and India -- both of which are rapidly expanding their own naval capacity, partially in response to Beijing's naval moves. It matters for the U.S., too, which has emerged as an important exporter of oil and gas by sea (though it remains a major importer as well).

China is preoccupied by potential threats to these sea-based energy flows. It faces the infamous "Malacca Dilemma," a term coined in 2003 by then-president Hu Jintao: The more China grows, the more it is dependent on the import of goods and energy by sea through chokepoints controlled by the U.S. Navy and its allies, like the Malacca Strait between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. That is a distinctly uncomfortable position.

Given these dynamics, the U.S. cannot simply hope that China will act constructively on the high seas. At the same time, it must ensure that its own actions and preparations do not intensify China's insecurities -- and expand its ambitions.

The challenge ahead is to maintain America's strategic advantage in naval power, especially its alliances, while avoiding confrontation with a wary and increasingly capable rival. Such a seaborne contest may seem remote, but its ramifications are global." [1]

The goals of the Lithuanian elite in relations with China are - to please America by annoying China, to encourage Taiwan to bring technologies to Lithuania, hoping to steal those technologies, as Janulaitis stole restriction enzyme technologies from the Russians. The chances of Taiwan bringing in technologies here are slim, but why not give it a try?

1. REVIEW --- The Challenge of China's Rising Power on the Seas --- A naval arms race has surfaced in the Pacific, forcing the U.S. to find ways to counter Beijing's ambitions without spurring a conflict
Jones, Bruce.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 18 Sep 2021: C.5.