China working to dominate sea routes as US loses interest

The Gulf’s new links to their customers in the Far East will require a new naval strategy to keep the sea lanes open for all

By Francis Matthew | Editor at Large

he oceans will be the world’s 21st century battlefields as new and old economic powers will struggle to dominate the maritime trade routes along which 90 per cent of global trade moves, and use their navies to deliver power to where they seek to achieve political or military gain. They also have an eye on the minerals and other treasures under the seas that cover two thirds of the globe.

China has a clear understanding that it needs to control the seas and it has been working to a global blue water strategy for decades. For the rest, it is concerned that the US does not have a similar consensus over its national strategy and is simply trying to stretch out its Cold War navy into an uncertain future.

Former Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ excellent book Duty is very revealing about the short-term thinking Washington. His memoire is full of references to budget cuts and fighting Congressional special interests, and he does not speak of any decades-long duty to preserve freedom on the ocean routes.

The Chinese deep water strategy is defined most recently in the 2013 defence white paper that points to a more strategic focus on maritime development, according to the East West Centre. For the first time both the Communist Party Congress and National People’s Congress agreed that “safeguarding maritime rights and interests” and “protecting overseas interests” were significant goals for the People’s Liberation Army.

And this has been in the making for a long time. Liu Huaqing commanded the Chinese Navy from 1982 to 1988 when he defined a very clear three-stage strategy that was described in the 2006 classic China’s Rising Sea Power by Peter Howarth.

The first stage was for China to be capable of controlling what the Chinese call “the first chain of islands” close to their shores by 2000, and then the “second chain of islands” by 2020, which would take them to the famous Nine-Dash Line that defines China’s claim to all of the South China Sea right up to its worried neighbour’s shorelines. The third phase was to create a blue-water navy capable of exercising global influence by 2050.

Today’s naval dramas

Today’s naval dramas in the South China Sea are the outcome of the second phase of Huaqing’s decades-old plan to control the “second chain of islands” as China scuffles with its neighbours including the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, and even far away Malaysia.

Only this week the Philippines protested about recent Chinese “sovereignty patrols” after two Chinese survey vessels were spotted near Reed Bank, an oil-rich area 144km from the nearest Philippine coast.

And from May to August this year the China National Offshore Oil Corporation anchored a large oil rig about 120 nautical miles (222km) east of Vietnam’s Ly Son Island and 180 nautical miles from China’s Hainan Island, apparently reinforcing China’s claim that it owns the nearby Paracel Islands.

But is not just China that is looking anxiously to the sea. More than half the world’s annual merchant fleet tonnage passes through the choke points of the four Straights of Malacca, Sunda, Lombok and Makassar. Two thirds of South Korea’s energy supplies, 60 per cent of Taiwan and Japan’s energy and 80 per cent of China’s crude imports all go through the South China Sea, according to Robert Kaplan writing in his new book Asia’s Cauldron.

And that is why what happening in the South China Sea is so important to the Gulf states. They have lost most of their long-term customers in Europe and the Americas, and they are forging new relationships in the Far East with China, South Korea and Japan.

All these states are well aware of the vital importance of Gulf hydrocarbons to their economic survival, but while Japan and South Korea are relying on their ally the US to continue to keep the seas open, China is making its own arrangements.

China has very little interest in the politics of the Gulf and avoids making any political interest in its trading partners affairs, but it does want to buy and transport as much oil and gas as it can from the Gulf.

Indian Ocean ports

This is why China has built four ports in the Indian Ocean, which it either controls or has long-term rights: in Chahbahar in Iran which is Iran’s only port outside the Gulf with access to the Arabian Sea, and Gwadar in Pakistan, both of which have land routes running through Iran to Afghanistan, making them potentially the end of an overland trade route from China.

China has also built a substantial port on Ramree Island in Myanmar where a large oil terminal meets oil and gas pipelines running up into China. The fourth Chinese port in the Indian Ocean is their half of Hambantota in Sri Lanka which was opened in 2010.

This means that China does not have to rely on the weakening American will to police the maritime trade routes, and by Huaqing’s 2050 target China could potentially enforce its own preferences on how goods should move through the South China Sea.

This would be a serious danger to Japan and Korea and their Gulf suppliers, who need to prepare to counter this threat, even if the Americans are not there to help.

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