In the book Red Star Over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge of U.S. Maritime Strategy, the authors discuss their interpretation of Chinese strategy as it relates to the U.S. maritime power in the Western Pacific. Dr. Yoshihara and Dr. Holmes postulate that Chinese strategists have studied Alfred Thayer Mahan’s theories of sea power. He further expounds on “China’s ability to harness such power against others or to nullify the overbearing power adversaries hold in important sea areas.”1 The book continues by presenting an argument that Chinese strategist use a combination of Mahan and Mao Zedong to cover the strategic and operational levels of war for the ultimate purpose of building maritime power in order to build a great nation. This may be one explanation for current Chinese strategy, but is there another, possibly more practical explanation? This paper will present an alternate, more practical approach to today’s Chinese strategy. Contrary to a Mahanian approach, China bases its strategy on the practical needs of a great nation undergoing a ‘peaceful development’ supported by concepts from the Chinese military classics. In essence, the development of Chinese Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) and maritime capabilities comes as a result of the need to maintain social harmony and safeguard national interests, not in order to develop command at sea as Mahan theorizes.
At its core Mahan’s theory on sea power posed that a country which builds naval power and gains sea control will become a great empire. According to Mahan his naval strategy “differs from military strategy in that it is as necessary in peace as in war.”2 This allows applicability to the Chinese who have not seen open warfare since 1979. Mahan theorizes tha...
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... of Chinese Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993), 43.
12 The Economist, “Sun Tzu and the Art of Soft Power,” The Economist, December 17, 2011, http://www.economist.com/node/21541714/ (accessed February 7, 2012).
13 Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, China’s National Defense in 2010 (Beijing, China: Information Office of the State Council, March 31, 2011), 6, http://www.china.org.cn/government/whitepaper/node_7114675.htm (accessed February 10, 2012).
14 Chih-Yu Shih, China’s Just World: The Morality of Chinese Foreign Policy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993), 44.
15 Yang Mingjie, “Sailing on a Harmonious Sea: A Chinese Perspective,” China US Focus, May 26, 2011, http://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/sailing-on-a-harmonious-sea-a-chinese-perspective/ (accessed on January 20, 2012).
Throughout the nineteenth century China’s emperors watched as foreign powers began to encroach closer and closer upon their land. Time after time, China was forced to make embarrassing concessions. Foreign militaries more modernly armed would constantly defeat the imperial armies. As the dawn of a new century was about to begin, Empress Tsu Hsi of the Ch’ing Dynasty searched for a way of ridding her empire of the foreign invaders.
The article “U.S., China and Thucydides” (Robert B. Zoellick, 2013) addressed the security dilemma between the rising China and the U.S. through the historical story, “the Thucydides trap”. In addition, the chapter 15 in the book US FOREIGN POLICY, by Michael Cox and Doug Stokes, indicated the situation of changing East Asia, rising China, and the role of the U.S. in this region in different periods. Therefore, the materials have revealed an important question about Sino-US relation, which is should the United States cooperate or compete with the rising China?
... and modernization of its ship yards to support warship development that is equal to or exceeding what is produced elsewhere. This will ensure China’s ability to control safe passage through the East and South China Sea, without relying on or being hindered by the possibility of sea tread embargo.
Sun Tzu’s strategy on war is still a very respected and influential book. The book breaks down war in a very strategic and intelligent way that gives extremely useful advice to those reading it. The book emphasizes the importance of strategy and positioning
China is the most populous state in the world, with over 1.3 trillion inhabitants (Central Intelligence Agency 2010). Because of its large population base, China also has the largest military and a booming economy that is third only America and Japan in terms of GDP; however, economic trends show that Japan’s economy is stagnating, while the American Chinese economies continue to spike upward (Google, Inc. 2010). Despite its growing economy and large military force, China lags behind America in technology and naval power. Chinese Admiral Wu Shengli said, “The Navy will move faster in researching and building new-generation weapons to boost the ability to fight in regional sea wars under the circumstance of information technology” (Xuequan 2009). This quote shows that China wants to remain a regional sea power, and not develop a blue-water navy that can compete with the American navy. Furthermore, a Popular Mechanics article showed the world that China was stealing American military “leap ahead” technology, or technology that is decades ahead of Chinese technology (Cooper 2009).
The article, “Here Be Dragons: Is China a Military Threat?” features a debate between the two authors, Aaron L. Friedberg and Robert S. Ross. The subject of the debate is simply; is China a military threat? Aaron Friedberg argues that China is a military “menace” that we should take as a serious threat while Robert Ross contends that China’s military threat is a “myth” that should be disregarded. The article concludes with a rebuttal from both authors, each offering a counter to the others argument.
Chapter Eight War and Society reveals the attitudes about war in both ancient Rome and China. These attitudes prove that in these cases perhaps it is safe to say that wars are not inevitable or natural but were caused by warlike societies and social situations. After reading bits and pieces of both the ancient Roman and Chinese history, one can only gain a greater perspective on how these attitudes derived. In 391 nomads called the Gauls defeated a small army of Roman aristocrats and burnt down the town of Rome. After this attack, Rome rebuilt its town and changed it into an empire, which spread its laws, culture, and peace from the North. Rome was convinced that after this first invasion, it was necessary to change their military.
Turner, Oliver, “Sino-US relations then and now: Discourse, images, policy”, Political Perspectives 2011, vol. 5 (3), 27-45, http://www.politicalperspectives.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Sino-US-relations1.pdf
Xiaobo, L., (2011), ‘Two Essays on China’s Quest for Democracy’ Journal of Democracy, 22(1): 154-166.
..., Asian or otherwise, for mastery of Asia-Pacific. As demonstrated in the paper: China has expanded its national security objectives; China has changed its patterns in the use of military force; China is developing a modern war machine and sea control capability and; China is attempting to build an anti-American and anti-West alliance. There can only be one reason for these activities. These are not moves directed at local oponents or guided by the principles of self-defence. This is a move aimed at the world's sole remaining superpower, the United States. American superpowership rests on the fact that it is master of the North and South American continent, the oceans that surround that land mass, and a forward presence in strategically important regions of the world such as, Western Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Asia. If China and the PLA can marginalize the United States in Asia, then they can challenge the United States' mantle as the world's only superpower. Only time will tell if they can be successful in their ambition.
Fedman, David. "Rethinking Asia: “Smart Power” and US-China Policy." The Olive & Arrow. The Word Press, 8 Mar. 2009. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. .
Since the initial warming of U.S.-China relations in the early 1970’s, policymakers have had difficulty balancing conflicting U.S. policy concerns in the People’s Republic of China. In the strange world of diplomacy between the two, nothing is predictable. From Nixon to Clinton, presidents have had to reconcile security and human rights concerns with the corporate desire for expanded economic relations between the two countries. Nixon established ties with Mao Zedong’s brutal regime in 1972. And today Clinton’s administration is trying to influence China’s course from within a close economic and diplomatic relationship.
Historical conceptions of China’s culture and global position shaped the PRC’s perspective. Central to this is Sino-centrism and its edict from heaven for dynastic China to spread civilisation (Xinning 2001: 70). Imperial China’s tribute system represented a “Pax Sinica” and the physical manifestation of Sino-centrism, with its success affirming Chinese cultural superiority (Y. Zhang 2001: 52). Instructive in this is Sino-centrism’s similarity to, and conflict with American Manifest Destiny, itself an articulation that Anglo-Saxon American’s are God’s chosen people, with a superior culture and who are pre-ordained to spread civilisation to inferior peoples (Hollander 2009: 169). The PRC’s nationalism can be seen in part as a rejection of this competing celestial mandate, linking China’s decline to foreign intervention and the acceding to unequal treaties that saw the loss of peripheral territories considered intrinsic to historic China (Kissinger 2011: 112). In this way, the PRC’s formation as a modern nation state is the recrudescence of Sino-...
“China: Imperial Unification and Perfecting the Moral Order”, in Sources in Patterns of World History, Volume 1, Gregory, Candace R., et al., eds. New York, Oxford University Press, 2012
For it to be fruitful, the coerced must be communicated clearly that the coercing power is much more resolve, committed and capable in achieveing their aims than the coerced power. Failure to do so would damage the coercing power’s credibility and serves to empower future aggression against them. A comparison between the Third Taiwan Straits crisis in 1996 and the USS Pueblo crisis in 1968 illustrates this notion. The massive showcase of U.S. Navy while, in the former case, compelled Beijing to cease their hostile series of naval exercises and missile tests, failed to secure the realease of the USS Pueblo and her crew in the latter case with Pyongyang. The checkered record of coercive naval diplomacy stands as testimony to