Category Archives: China and the Pacific

The Gwadar-Karakoram-Xinjiang Corridor

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The Crowning piece of  China’s Strategic Mosaic to its Africa and Middle East Undertaking

by

Vice Admiral (retd) Vijay Shankar

Keywords: Gwadar-Karakoram-Xinjiang Corridor, Chinese commercial and military engagement of Africa and West Asia

Download full article here: Shankar, The Karakoram Corridor

Excerpts:

A Historical Fable Morphs into Actuality

The North and Northwest Passages were fabled sea routes conjured by adventurers, merchants and money chandlers over the last six centuries to link the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean. The Route lay through the Arctic archipelago of what became Canada and the treacherous ice flows that frustrate passage across the Arctic Ocean. To discover, establish and control a commercial all weather sea line of communication that would have world wide economic significance was the quest of early explorers. Some of these voyages ended in disaster while others in failure in the search for a viable deep sea channel amidst drifting icebergs and trapping ice flows.   Not till 1906 when Amundsen made the transit over an arduous three year voyage was the feat achieved; and a feat it remained till Nature through global warming made the passage a distinct commercial and strategic verity. Today the route is a reality and in 2011 alone more than 18 commercial ships had made the now ice free crossing. To put matters in perspective, as a trade corridor the distance from China to markets in Europe has been cut down to less than 8000 miles from 14,700 miles. Significantly the route avoids two sensitive ‘choke points’ the Malacca Strait and the Suez Canal.

While a combination of strategic security considerations, geopolitical circumstances, commercial power rivalry, imperatives of economy in a globalised world and Nature made actuality of a fable; a very similar array of forces have set in motion another global quest. Only on this historical occasion it is China that  leads the charge to secure a strategic corridor serviced by a maritime terminal that would quench not just its thirst for energy but also provide a secure alternative conduit for the ‘fruits’ of its Africa and Middle East ventures to feed its resource guzzling growth programme.

 […]

Given the stakes that China has in her own development and her justified security concerns, there are adequate signals to suggest that India needs to pull out of the state of paranoia that she transits through every time that China collaborates with Pakistan, particularly so in the case of the Gwadar-Karakoram-Xinjiang energy cum raw materials corridor. It is true that there are very serious unresolved territorial disputes that plague Sino-Indian relations and the proposed corridor runs through some of this territory; but what is of greater significance is the burgeoning trade between the two which is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015. In this deepening of commercial relations lies the germ of friction resolution.

Download full article here: Shankar, The Karakoram Corridor

Strategic Posture in the Eastern Ocean

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by

VAdm (retd.) Vijay Shankar 

Download full article here: Shankar, Strategic Posture in the Eastern Ocean

Keywords: India Maritime Strategy, Strategic Approach, Eastern Ocean,  China Comprehensive National Power, ASEAN, Look East Policy

Excerpts:

[…]

It was Clausewitz who first noted an area of darkness when it came to characterizing the complex relationship between national strategy and the military resources that were needed to muscle and enable that strategy. He perceived this region of obscurity as one caused by a lack of an understanding of the nature of power and the need to sculpt it in a manner that it promoted national strategy. Specifically within the framework of the military as a tool he identified this as a failure to distinguish between the maintenance of armed forces and their use in pursuit of larger objectives.[i] In Book II of Clausewitz’s On War, while discussing ‘The Theory of War,’ he notes,

“Even if we break down war into its various activities, we will find that the difficulties are not uniform throughout. The more physical the activity, the less the difficulties will be. The more the activity becomes intellectual and turns into motives which exercise a determining influence on the commander’s will, the more the difficulties will increase. Thus it is easier to use theory to organize, plan and conduct an engagement than it is to use it in determining the engagement’s purpose.”[ii]

This quandary was not unique to Clausewitz’s period as the dilemma continues to contemporary times when the momentum that propels the development of armed forces builds logic of growth that defies purpose and is often self fulfilling.

The absence of a cogent theory, which integrates the promotion, nurturing and maintenance of force with a convincing contract for use, is one of the first imperatives that the State must seek to reconcile. From this resolution emerges the concept of ‘Strategic Poise.’

[…]

A Hundred Battles: Chinese Security Perceptions[iii]

China published its sixth Defense White Paper in January 2008. Its contours were that of a self-confident China recognizing its own growing economic and military prowess. Unwritten was Beijing’s intention to improve her image the first step of which was to provide some clarity by the issuance of the White Paper. At the same time, the paramountcy of containment of the various social fissures that their development has precipitated was top of their agenda. Their appreciation of the security situation underscored the belief that the risk of world wide all-out war was relatively low in the foreseeable future, yet, the absence of such risk did not automatically imply a conviction that stability and peace pervades international relations. The paper critically points out that struggles for cornering strategic resources, dominating geographically vital areas and tenanting strategic locations have, in fact, intensified. Power as a natural currency for politics remains the preferred instrument. Under these circumstances the portents for friction are ever present and would therefore demand preparedness, modernization and orientation of a nature that would serve to neutralize the fall out of such friction.[iv]

[…]
Contemporary challenges in the Eastern Ocean in context of the Look East policy are dominated by three currents. What direction China’s rise will take is a matter of conjecture, of significance is that the potential for a collision is a reality and the only consideration that could deter it, is the ability of India to attain a strategic posture in the Eastern Ocean that serves to stabilize. On the ‘globalization-nationalism’ non state actor conundrum, clearly plural societies with decentralized control are more likely to transform, adjust, adapt and tweak their systems than monolithic centrally controlled States such as China which are intrinsically brittle in form, the fallout on the region caused by a transformation inconsistency can only be traumatic. The third current is India’s relationship with the USA; it is here that some control exists in the hands of our policy makers. India has shown itself; through restraint, pluralistic and popular form of governance to be a responsible State that upholds the status quo yet invites change through democratic forces and its rise, in the main, is not only welcomed in South East Asia but is seen as a harmonizing happening that could counterpoise China.  The next step would logically be to establish an Indo-US strategic framework in the maritime domain, if we are to resourcefully contend with the challenges that the Eastern Ocean presents.

End Notes

[i] Howard, Michael, Causes of War, Harvard University Press 1980, p.102.

[ii] Clausewitz Carl Von, On War, Howard and Paret (Eds.), Princeton University Press: New Jersey, 1989, p. 140

[iii] In Sun Tzu’s Art of War, Knowing the enemy and knowing oneself is the key to victory in a hundred battles. Sun Tzu, Art of War, Samuel B. Griffith (trans.) Oxford University Press, 1963.

[iv] Ma Cheng-Kun,  PLA News Analysis, “Significance of 2008 China’s National Defense White Paper” no. 15, pp. 49-60

The Zheng He Bequest

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by

Vice Admiral (retd.) Vijay Shankar

Keywords: China maritime strategy, Zheng He, Comprehensive National Power, Third Island Chain

Download full article here: Shankar, The Zheng He Bequest

Excerpt:

A Historical Perspective

Between 1405 and 1433 CE the Ming emperors of China commissioned a series of seven naval expeditions into the Indian Ocean in order to impose imperial control over these waters and to awe the littorals of the South East Asia and the Indian Ocean of their techno military prowess. Resistance to the grand scheme of the emerging 15th century super power was met by the sword. Zheng He the eunuch admiral in court was made in charge of a grand fleet the likes of which had never been conceived before. Typically the fleet for each of the seven splendid voyages, included large treasure ships of a displacement unheard of in medieval times (400 feet in length, warships, troop transport, equine ships and a host of other support units totaling near 300 vessels (no armada was ever to match such force levels, either in terms of numbers or tonnage, till well into the 20th century.)

Through diplomacy, trade, coercion and the iron fist, Zheng irresistibly exacted tribute and capital from the suzerains of the countries he visited. In addition he ruthlessly suppressed the pirates of the South East Asian straits bringing to an end a long and anarchic period in these waters; he forcibly populated the Malaca region with Chinese (Muslims), the larger impact of which is felt to this very day; he waged a land war against the Kingdom of Kotte in Sri Lanka for trading rights; fought a campaign in Muscat, Aden and Mogadishu; and established fortified trading posts and cultural centers in Champa (Vietnam), Java, Siam, Cochin, Calicut, Hormuz, Muscat, Dhofar, Aden, Jeddah, Zeila, Mogadishu and the Maldives. He brought back to China, some voluntarily and at times forcibly, thirty envoys to the Ming court. [1]

[…]

There is undoubtedly considerable gap between China’s ambitions of realizing great power status and her current capabilities, so too the seriousness of internal stresses and inequities, the hazards that further deep penetration reforms may pose to the social fabric of the nation and the dangers of strategic miscalculations; there is no denying the will of the CCP and the relentless nature of their pursuit to global leadership. There remain however four crucial determinants which will dictate the course of China’s ambitions in the Indian Ocean region. These are:

(a) What form reconciliation of the Taiwan imbroglio will take and with what finesse     China will resolve her South China Sea territorial disputes. If either are conflictual it   will have far reaching negative impact on their ambitions in the Indian Ocean region.

(b) Energy security is greatly influenced by global markets, technological innovations   and is sensitive to geo political turbulences in the oil producing regions. A slowdown in economic growth will prove a serious dampener to long term designs.

(c) The coming ‘Third Island Chain’ covering the Indian Ocean region is hardly suggestive of a cooperative approach to security. Such unilateral strategies will invariably give rise to friction between the main stakeholders which may result in actions that are unfavourable for growth .

(d) Internal stresses and the growing economic gap in society are fissures that are not easily bridged, particularly if current growth rates are to be maintained. Pace of reforms and its penetration may all add up to turbulences in the core.

Chinese leadership had in the early nineties given guidance to their security strategies through the instrument of the ‘24 Character strategy’ and have allocated resources to pursue a military transformation from Mass to Mobility and Precision. Force structuring would not only be capable of securing the Second Island Chain but would look to projecting power in a broader regional sense and for global objectives. However this is subject to the determinants listed above. In any event the absence of a true sea control capability and its continued presence through the deployment of carrier groups in areas of interest is unlikely to be a reality for the next two decades. The absence of moves to establish cooperative stabilizing structures in areas where the stakeholders are many hold the portents for friction. Given such a delicate situation, Admiral Zheng He would have in all probabilities opted for a solution marked by mutuality and accommodation.

[1]  The Times Concise Atlas of World History pp 58-9 and Huan Ma “The Overall Survey of The Ocean Shores” written in 1416 in the Chinese language.

Download full article here: Shankar, The Zheng He Bequest