US Admiral Samuel Locklear, the commander of US forces in Asia and the Pacific, has cautioned that the US and China have begun competing to see whose navy rules beneath the waves in the vast Pacific and Indian oceans.
In an interview at the US Pacific Command’s headquarters overlooking Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the admiral also suggested that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) seems to have moved swiftly to exert control over China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Regarding submarines, Locklear estimates that China plans to acquire 80 submarines — some powered by diesel-electric engines, others by nuclear reactors — to expand its current fleet of 55 boats. He cited this expansion as an example of Beijing’s lack of transparency.
“Why do they need them, what are they for?” Locklear asked rhetorically.
By contrast, the US Pacific Fleet has 30 attack, two guided-missile and eight ballistic missile submarines. Under US President Barack Obama’s administration’s plan to “rebalance” US forces in the region, that number is scheduled to grow gradually.
In testimony to a US Congressional committee last month, Locklear said: “Both Russia and China are expected to soon field new ballistic missile submarines capable of ranging the US homeland,” meaning they would be able to target US cities and military bases.
The Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military power, released last week, said that China’s new submarines would be armed with ballistic missiles able to travel 4,400 miles (7,081km).
Beijing’s most recent white paper on defense, released last month, said only that its submarine fleet was being modernized.
Locklear added that smaller nations in the region are expanding their submarine forces “as a potential counter to stronger neighbors.”
Press dispatches from Southeast Asia and India have reported Chinese submarines operating increasingly in the South China Sea and out into the Indian Ocean. Until now, China’s aerial defenses have been given greater attention outside of China.
In the interview, Locklear said — as US political and military leaders have for years — that the US is not seeking to “contain” China.
“We need to contain competition between the two powers to develop a stable security environment in the Asia-Pacific [region] that is capable of adjusting or flexing without breaking apart during a crisis,” he said.
On the issue of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control of the PLA, Locklear said: “It appears to me that President Xi has moved quickly to solidify control of the PLA under his leadership.”
In addition to being CCP general secretary, Xi is chairman of China’s Central Military Commission.
The CCP supposedly controls the PLA through the commission, but it now has only two civilian members, Xi and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強). The other 10 members are generals or admirals in a group where consensus is often the rule.
Whether Xi will be able to exert his will on the group remains to be seen.
At the same time, Xi has sought to gain control over the maritime agencies known as the Nine Dragons, mythical monsters that stir up the sea.
Locklear said Xi had established a bureau to coordinate the activities of the various units operating in the South and East China seas.
Up until now, the agencies have been patrolling with a lack of coordination that has caused turmoil for Beijing and other governments.
Xi has evidently found it necessary to streamline controls over those bureaucratic centers because he wants to avoid a miscalculation that could have serious unintended consequences.
Richard Halloran is a commentator in Hawaii.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS