Still Waters Run Deep

China has enhanced naval clout and is willing to use it

Games played at sea seldom make headlines. Yet most empires were built by nations with powerful navies. China’s leaders realised that a modernised China required a strong navy to protect its territorial boundaries and, more importantly, vital imports of precious fuel and other natural resources. Such concerns have been accentuated by recent hijacking attempts on cargo ships in the Indian Ocean.

Efforts commenced in the mid-1980s to modernise the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Since then the navy has grown, steadily enhancing its ability to protect China’s territorial boundaries and 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone. In recent years, it has enabled China’s leadership to craft a robust policy towards Taiwan and actively resist competing offshore territorial claims of countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan etc.

China’s economic policies, pursued for over 30 years, have vastly increased its international economic interaction. China’s seaborne commerce now totals 700 million tonnes a year, the fifth largest in the world. Sixty per cent of China’s vital oil imports come by sea. The number of Chinese ocean-going cargo vessels and tankers has increased. These considerations ensured sufficient funds for PLAN’s modernisation, including construction of modern submarines and plans for three aircraft carriers. The navy’s operational doctrine has also been reformulated.

China’s decision last December to send a flotilla outside its territorial waters for the first time in 600 years — for anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean off Somalia — demonstrated its confidence in its navy. Continuing its presence in the Indian Ocean, PLAN this month replaced both its warships. The supply ship’s tour has been extended. The Chinese flotilla has a complement of 800 men, a Special Forces component and two helicopters.

Deployment of the ships has been portrayed as willingness to engage with the international community in anti-piracy operations in international waters. It additionally demonstrates the Chinese navy’s expanded operational reach, its ability to send groups of ships far from its territorial waters, and its determination to protect its seaborne commercial cargo. Deployment at the same time of warships for exercises with the Pakistan navy and of a frigate to the waters off the Philippines, points to PLAN’s enhanced operational and logistical capability.

China’s leadership kept the spotlight on its growing naval capability, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, just weeks before the first summit meeting between US president Barack Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao in London this month. On March 8, five Chinese vessels confronted the USNS Impeccable, a survey ship on surveillance mission 70 miles from Sanya, capital of southern China’s Hainan Island. Towing a sonar apparatus that listens for submarines, mines etc, it was spying on the facility near Sanya where nuclear-powered ballistic missile attack submarines are built. By itself the presence of a US spy ship is not unusual as major powers continuously play cat and mouse games in these strategically sensitive waters. What is unusual is the Chinese action. This confrontation between a ship of China’s navy and one of the US navy, which has the largest presence in the region, follows four similar incidents, the last being in the Yellow Sea in 2002.

This demonstration of PLAN’s capabilities differed from earlier incidents. On this occasion, a Chinese vessel came within 25 feet of the US ship, prompting US officials to describe it as the most serious incident since 2001. Pentagon described the Chinese action as “dangerous, unprofessional” and a “violation of international law”. US officials emphasised that such missions would continue while Obama authorised dispatch of a destroyer to escort USNS Impeccable.

China’s riposte was that it was a violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as well as Chinese law and regulations. Military deputies echoed sharp sentiments during the National People’s Congress, China’s version of a parliament, then underway in Beijing.


The political leadership’s reactions, however, reflected the delicate balance in relations between the US and China and the latter’s growing role in international affairs at the present juncture. The US secretary of state and vicepresident both soft-pedalled the matter in meetings with Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi in Washington before he met the US president. Obama did the same and the US confined its actions to lodging a formal protest with the Chinese foreign ministry and summoning the Washington-based Chinese defence attache for a dressing down.

China’s leaders have been saying since the 1960s that the Indian Ocean is not India’s Ocean. They have been seeking a foothold in the region and wooing Mauritius, the Seychelles and France, till the latter approved a Chinese consulate in Reunion Island. Chinese navy presence in the Indian Ocean is now larger than India’s. The confrontation with the US navy survey ship is, however, significant as China’s action comes amidst a silent, and at times violent, tussle for territory among claimant nations in the South and East China Seas. In separate acts, the Philippines and Malaysia recently claimed sovereignty over parts of the Spratly Islands.

By its action, China has suggested it will oppose counterclaims with muscle, undoubtedly raising apprehension in the neighbourhood. While surveillance activities by the concerned powers in the region, accompanied by efforts to nibble territory, will continue, the Chinese leadership has opted for the policy: Kill a chicken to frighten the monkey!