Q and A on New Pentagon Report on the Chinese Military

Michael Forsythe

May 11, 2015

Q. and A.: Andrew S. Erickson on China’s Military Goals and Capabilities 

Every year, the United States Department of Defense must submit a report to Congress — a classified version and an unclassified one — on “military and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China.” This year’s 89-page unclassified report, released last week, analyzes China’s evolving military goals and strategies and new developments in its naval, air and ground capabilities.

The report regularly draws an official rebuke from China, and this year was no exception. A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua Chunying, saidon Sunday that the United States should “abandon its Cold War mind-set, take off its colored glasses and have an objective and rational understanding of China’s military development.”

In an interview, Andrew S. Erickson, an associate professor at the United States Naval War College and a scholar affiliated with Harvard University’s John King Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, discussed the report, Beijing’s ambitions and the chances that China will close the military power gap with the United States:

Q

The report seems very cautious and balanced, and far from alarmist. Was there anything that particularly stood out to you, especially in relation to past reports?

A.

I fully concur. The report indeed represents, in Chinese parlance, an effort to “seek truth from facts.” In an annual political ritual, Chinese state mouthpieces denounce the report — yet rarely address its substance at all, let alone disprove any specifics.

A particular evolution from previous iterations was the Defense Department’s emphasis on the extent to which the People’s Liberation Army is beginning to operate beyond East Asia. The report reveals that China first sent submarines to the Indian Ocean in 2013-14, ostensibly to assist with Gulf of Aden antipiracy efforts, but more usefully to gain irreplaceable operational experience. The report boldly predicts that within a decade Beijing will “establish several access points” in the Indian Ocean to support refueling and replenishment, low-level maintenance and crew rest. Now Djibouti’s president has been quoted in media reports as stating that his nation is holding discussions with China over the establishment of such an access point. That said, Beijing’s greatest military priorities remain closer to home.

Q.

The report devotes quite a bit of space to analyzing Chinese moves in the South China Sea and East China Sea. In the past year, we’ve seen a ramp-up in land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea. What is China’s aim? How does that change the strategic dynamic in the area?

A.

That’s where some of China’s most potent military development is directed, and a focus of legitimate foreign concerns. On March 9, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying stated that Spratly Island building was designed in part to “satisfy necessary military defense needs.” On May 8, Hua added, “The scale of China’s construction activities is commensurate with its responsibility and obligation as a major power.” Beijing appears to be constructing better facilities for personnel stationed on reclaimed land, ports for logistics, paramilitary and naval ships, airstrips for civilian and military aircraft and a network of radars to enable monitoring of most of the South China Sea.

Together with more coast guard vessels than all its neighbors combined, and one of the world’s only maritime militias, this is rapidly placing China in a completely different league from its South China Sea neighbors in military presence and capabilities. Beijing doesn’t seek war, but it does want to use preponderant capabilities to compel smaller neighbors to settle disputes bilaterally on its own terms. More broadly, it seems that China dreams of reasserting regional pre-eminence in East Asia. Here, its leaders apparently believe, international norms should be subordinated to Beijing’s “core” interests.

Q.

U.S. Navy ships routinely transit the South China Sea. Do you see a time when that transit would be challenged by the Chinese Navy? How could this play out?

A.

Beijing claims that its activities in international waters and airspace pose no such threat, but its actions and efforts raise worrying inconsistencies and uncertainties. China’s attempts to counter activities it opposes have resulted in numerous dangerous encounters with U.S. government and military ships and aircraft, many in the South China Sea — the vast majority of which Beijing claims in unspecified form. For years, China has claimed the right to restrict reconnaissance, surveying and other activities it deems “military” in its claimed Exclusive Economic Zone [E.E.Z.] — an approach clearly at odds with international law and practice, as accepted by the vast majority of nations. In November 2013, China announced an Air Defense Identification Zone [A.D.I.Z.] over the East China Sea. China threatens still-unspecified “defensive emergency measures” if foreign aircraft don’t comply with its orders — orders that an A.D.I.Z. doesn’t give it license to issue or enforce physically. This suggests that China is reserving the “right” to treat international airspace beyond 12 nautical miles as “territorial airspace” in important respects — an expansionist analogue to its E.E.Z. approach.

As the Defense Department’s report documents, in August 2014 a Chinese Navy J-11 fighter buzzed a slow-moving [U.S. Navy] P-8 maritime patrol aircraft on a routine mission in international airspace, coming within 30 feet. If China uses emerging Spratly airstrips to support an A.D.I.Z. over the South China Sea, I worry that such dangerous encounters will only increase. The U.S. and many other nations believe that maintaining freedom of navigation is vital to the effective functioning of the global system.

Q.

The report discussed the increasing capabilities of the Chinese S.S.B.N. [nuclear ballistic missile submarine] fleet and the commencement of long-range patrols. Of how much concern is that to the United States?

A.

The Defense Department has been anticipating this for some time, and it looks like the first patrols will occur soon. But S.S.B.N. operations are extremely exacting, and China does not appear to have mastered the nuclear propulsion and related quieting technology to make its boomers truly difficult to detect. This is a long-term project. By contrast, China’s land-based Second Artillery Force has already deployed a major intercontinental ballistic missile force, and the world’s foremost sub-strategic ballistic missile force. Its latest nuclear and conventional systems are mobile, some with sophisticated countermeasures. Additionally, China deploys numerous, advanced cruise missiles on land, submarines, ships and aircraft. So China can muster tremendous nuclear and conventional deterrence capabilities long before it has S.S.B.N.s that can hide effectively in remote waters, and — in a worst-case scenario we all hope will never occur — strike targets anywhere in the world.

Q.

From an order of battle perspective, how does the modernized Chinese Navy in the Pacific compare these days to the U.S. Pacific Fleet? How fast is it catching up in some capabilities?

A.

This is like comparing apples and mandarin oranges at best. The U.S. and Chinese navies are designed to execute very different missions. Most fundamentally, the U.S. Navy is tasked with ensuring nuclear deterrence, securing the global commons and assisting its sister services in projecting power ashore. China’s Navy remains focused on conventional warfare in the “Near Seas” (Yellow, East and South China Seas) — the location of all Beijing’s unresolved island and maritime claims — and their immediate approaches. It is supported in these efforts by an “anti-navy” of land-based missiles and aircraft. The People’s Liberation Army still suffers from significant limitations in coordination and power projection, but within this prioritized zone, it has many capabilities it can apply, and many ways in which it can apply them.

China is indeed sending its navy into the Indian Ocean and beyond, and greatly improving its ability to conduct peacetime operations there. But this remains far from translating into war-fighting capabilities against another major military. It would require a navy that looks and functions far more like the U.S. Navy. Tremendous resources and effort, invested over considerable time, will be required for China to effect such a transformation even partially. The shortcuts and synergies that Beijing has so deftly exploited close to home don’t readily translate far away.

Q.

Any other areas in the report that you think are worth mentioning?

A.

With European integration mired in economic and political problems, and Russia’s parade of defense developments lacking a firm fiscal foundation, China’s military is moving into an overall position second only to that of the United States. Some smaller militaries remain far stronger pound-for-pound and in niche areas, but in coming years Beijing will have very few peers in the increasingly expensive combination of quality and quantity that makes a truly great power military.

The Defense Department report documents the superlatives that are powering the People’s Liberation Army’s ascent. China has the most naval vessels in Asia and the most blue-water coast guard vessels in the world as well as an air force that is Asia’s largest, and the world’s third largest. China’s air force maintains one of the world’s largest forces of advanced long-range surface-to-air missiles. By 2030, Beijing may be close to having the world’s second-most aircraft carriers. Numbers have led quality, but Beijing is working hard to improve there, too.

“China has made dramatic improvements in all defense industrial production sectors,” the report says, “and is comparable to other major weapon system producers like Russia and the European Union in some areas.” With less established systems like unmanned aerial vehicles, China might approach leading levels with particular rapidity. For instance, the report states: “Some estimates indicate China plans to produce upwards of 41,800 land- and sea-based unmanned systems, worth about $10.5 billion, between 2014 and 2023.”

But China is unlikely to fully close the aggregate military power gap with the U.S. The disparity in global military influence is likely to remain still greater. Domestic stability remains of paramount concern to the Chinese Communist Party, which lavishes tremendous resources on internal security forces. “Core” interests remain unresolved to Beijing’s satisfaction in the Near Seas, where neighbors increasingly oppose Chinese pressure.

Meanwhile, the three-decade economic juggernaut that has helped fund military modernization is downshifting to a slower rate of growth, at best. All this argues against anything even approaching a U.S.-style global force posture. It also suggests that beyond the contested Near Seas, the U.S. and China have many common and complementary interests on which they might build further.