Chinese Navy: ambitions and political agendas

Politique Internationale — What exactly are China’s military ambitions? Are they in line with its international policy objectives? Or are there other specifics?

Valérie Niquet — If the latest edition of the Chinese Defense White Paper (2019) is to be believed, the country’s defense policy is “exclusively defensive”, and China prides itself on seeking neither hegemony nor expansion of its sphere of influence (1). At the same time, Chinese leaders stress that the international situation is more tense than ever (2). Against this backdrop, the PLA’s (People’s Liberation Army) missions are numerous: to deter and respond to aggression, to preserve political security and social stability, to oppose Taiwanese independence and separatism in Tibet and Xinjiang, to defend the territorial integrity and “maritime rights and interests of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)”, and to promote the country’s development.

With Taiwan re-electing a candidate from the DPP party, hostile to any unity with the mainland, on January 14, 2024, Beijing reaffirms that reunification, if possible by peaceful means but if necessary by force, is inevitable. China also wants to play a role on the international stage, through its participation in UN peacekeeping operations and in operations to secure major international communication routes. Finally, it wants to establish itself as a major power in the face of the United States, the main obstacle to its ambitions in Asia (3).

While rejecting the principle of an arms race, which it believes was one of the causes of the fall of the USSR, Beijing has given itself the means to assume these ambitions, with a defense budget that has increased fivefold over the past twenty years to officially reach $224.8 billion in 2023, second only to that of the United States (4). The PLA must be “combat-ready”, as Xi Jinping repeats, and establish itself as a world-class force by 2049, the hundredth anniversary of Mao Zedong’s seizure of power. It must also enable the country to protect its interests “beyond the seas”, in an Indo- Pacific region still dominated by the United States and its allies, which presupposes the acquisition of significant means of power projection.

P. I. — Can China be considered a major naval and maritime power? What are the indicators that confirm this?

V. N. — The development of China’s navy has been a priority for Beijing since the 1990s. For China’s leaders, it’s a question of equipping themselves with the means to deal with Taiwan, ensuring a continuous presence in the China Sea, and attempting to protect maritime supply routes, while at the same time taking revenge for the past: unlike Japan, imperial China, apart from the brief episode of Zheng He’s expeditions in the XVe century, was not known for its naval prowess. Today, in terms of number of ships, the PRC has the largest fleet in the world, with 370 vessels in 2023. China is drawing on the experience of its civilian shipbuilding industry to step up the pace of warship construction. The majority of these vessels are now modern and capable of projecting into the high seas. The PRC has 60 submarines, including six SSBN (nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines), six SSNA (nuclear attack submarines) and 48 diesel- powered submarines of a technical level close to that of Russia. This figure could double by 2035.

To this navy must be added other capabilities: the PRC has the largest coastguard fleet in the world, with very large vessels, including the 12,000-ton CCG 5901. It also mobilizes the resources of a civilian militia based on Maoist principles of popular warfare, comprising several hundred fishing boats equipped by the authorities with radar and communications equipment.

Coastguards and civilian militia carry out almost daily harassment missions in the East China Sea against Japan around the Senkaku Islands, and in the South China Sea against the Philippines, Vietnam and, albeit to a lesser extent, Indonesia and Malaysia. Finally, as the world’s leading trading power, the PRC is home to one of the world’s largest shipping companies, COSCO, which, with 476 container ships, ranks fourth in the world. Today, COSCO is present in some ten ports in Europe, Asia, the United States and the Middle East.

P. I. — Do we have a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese navy? Or are there still many grey areas?

V. N. — Since the mid-1990s, the Chinese navy has made considerable progress. It has equipped itself with a fleet of modern vessels capable of projecting beyond the first chain of islands that closes off the China Sea. By 2023, the Chinese navy will have 49 new-generation destroyers, including the 13,000-ton T055, equipped with advanced defense and communications systems. Nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines lend credibility to the PRC’s deterrent force, and the latest T096 conventional attack submarines, due to enter service before 2030, are said to be on a par with Russia’s most powerful submarines. Finally, symbolizing China’s power on the seas, the PLAN (China’s navy) has two aircraft carriers, the second of which is based on Chinese technology, and soon a third.

The fusion of civil-military capabilities called for by Xi Jinping is enabling China to produce large quantities of vessels, including “roll in roll out” civil vehicle transport vessels that can be adapted for military use. Between 2015 and 2024, the country built nearly 300 vessels of this type. In 2022, thirty of these vessels participated in support of military transport exercises.

But despite these remarkable advances, many shortcomings remain. The first is the absence of large-scale joint exercises with powers other than Russia. Reconnaissance, communications, control and command resources have been considerably improved, but are still inadequate, particularly in the event of a conflict involving the United States. In the event of an operation in the Taiwan Strait with the aim of landing on the island, the PLAN’s “one-shot” transport and logistics capabilities remain too limited, without even taking into account the need to organize regular rotations in a very hostile environment. The use of civilian vessels is envisaged, but their characteristics make them particularly vulnerable and unsuitable for landing equipment.

Lastly, the nature of the political system weighs heavily on the PLAN’s ability to act. The role of political commissars adds complexity to the chain of command, and proves ill-defined in wartime. Corruption - recently highlighted within the launcher force and by the “disappearance” and subsequent ousting of the Minister of Defense - which by its very nature affects the entire military hierarchy and China’s DITB (defense industrial and technological base), also weighs on the real quality of forces that have no experience of fire.

P. I. — Is China in the vanguard, or is it looking to work in concert with other powers to make progress in the naval sector? Have recent geopolitical events slowed down the pace of possible collaboration?

V. N. — China’s image is that of a technological superpower, including in the military field. The reality is more nuanced, however, and Beijing still depends heavily on external inputs, as demonstrated by the latest-generation semiconductor sector. The PRC has few partners to fill its gaps. In the potentially dual-use civilian sector, it no longer has access to the latest-generation semiconductors. The embargo on arms sales, in place since 1989, has not been lifted by either the European Union or the United States. Since Xi Jinping came to power, the PRC’s more aggressive stance has not been conducive to the resumption of closer cooperation.

Under these conditions, Russia has been and remains the PRC’s main defense partner. Military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing increased considerably after 2014, although since the Russian attack on Ukraine, it seems to have slowed down. On the naval front, major exercises held every year have been maintained. The most recent took place in the summer of 2023 off the coast of Japan and lasted three weeks. While these exercises showcase the strength of the Russian-Chinese “partnership without limits”, they also provide China with an opportunity to develop its naval capabilities. In several areas, particularly anti-submarine warfare, China is not yet on a par with its Russian partner, which stresses that increased cooperation between the two navies would reduce the gap, particularly in terms of technology, with the fleets of the United States and its allies (5).

P. I. — At what level are decisions made, and who exactly decides on major strategic shifts? The state, the party, industrialists, other circuits?

V. N. — As soon as he came to power as head of the Communist Party, the State and the Central Military Commission, Xi Jinping proclaimed his determination to create an army ready for combat and, what’s more, capable of winning a war by 2049, when the PLA is expected to reach world-class capability. Far from the plethora of ground forces in the Maoist era, the Chinese army now favors quality over quantity, and technical weapons such as the navy, long the poor relation of a China turned towards the Soviet continental threat.

The development of naval capabilities is therefore primarily a response to this impetus, which comes from the highest levels of the Party and the State, and not from autonomous industrial orientations: there are no private companies in China’s defense sector, and the major state-owned enterprises are totally controlled by the Communist Party and its ruling bodies. The participation of private companies or high-tech start-ups in tenders for the supply of military equipment remains underdeveloped.

However, the navy is at the heart of the logic of merging military and civilian industrial and technological capabilities, a development strategy that is not new in China. Xi Jinping accelerated the movement in 2017 by creating the Military-Civil Fusion Commission, which he heads and which is responsible for fostering synergies between economic and technological ecosystems. It is within the same state-owned enterprise, founded in 1979, that these synergies are being implemented in naval matters.

The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) is the world’s fourth-largest Chinese defense contractor. In addition to building China’s third aircraft carrier, the company also produces large quantities of civilian ships at the same shipyards (6). By 2022, the PRC was producing 35% of the world’s assembled ships. Both types of equipment are exported through the China Shipbuilding Trading Company, with export revenues contributing to the development of military capabilities.

P. I. — Taiwan is a thorny issue for all Western chancelleries. Is it a textbook case of Chinese military might?

V. N. — In 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China on the mainland, but the Beijing regime was never able to seize the island of Taiwan, where Chiang Kai-shek, president of the Nationalist Republic of China, had taken refuge. The absence of naval capabilities did not prevent Maoist China from increasing its military gesticulations and attempted coups de force against Taiwan and its dependent islets, but from the 1980s onwards, with the introduction of economic reforms, to which Taiwanese funding made a major contribution, relations eased.

Yet Beijing has never given up on “reunifying” the island, and tensions have risen again since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. The latter has made the “Chinese dream” of a great renaissance by 2049 the goal of his leadership. Reclaiming Taiwan would mark the end of the civil war, the undisputed triumph of the Communist Party and the fulfillment of this Chinese dream. China’s rise to economic power has enabled it to build up its armed forces, including a more powerful, better-equipped and more professional navy.

In the event of an offensive against Taiwan, naval forces, starting with submarines and landing forces, would be called upon to play an essential role. But increased capacity does not mean taking action with a more than uncertain outcome. For Beijing, it is also a question of giving credibility to its constantly reiterated ambitions, and thereby dissuading Taiwan from any declaration of independence, an unlikely eventuality. In the event, although Xi Jinping constantly repeats that Taiwan “will be reunified”, no deadline is set, and it is the solution of “peaceful reunification” - without renouncing the use of force in the event of a declaration of independence, and relying on the resources of information warfare - that is officially favoured. This is the approach that corresponds to the real capabilities of the Chinese forces, and in particular of a navy that is currently unable to impose its dominance in a combat situation in the Straits.

P. I. — How is China’s power perceived in Asia?

V. N. — China’s strategy in the area has considerably damaged the country’s regional image. It has become more aggressive in the East and South China Seas, increasing the number of large-scale exercises and incursions into the contiguous or even territorial waters of countries administered or claimed by other regional powers - including in South-East Asia, beyond the countries directly concerned by the nine-dash line unilaterally defined by Beijing, which covers more than 80% of the South China Sea.

Many of Beijing’s partner states, whether in Southeast Asia or in the countries of the “Global South” that have benefited from Chinese offers to develop infrastructure as part of the Maritime Silk Road, have no wish to break away from the Chinese economic giant and the opportunities it offers. On the one hand, Japan is strengthening its military capabilities, partly in response to Chinese pressure, while on the other, delegations from Keidanren, Japan’s leading employers’ organization, are visiting Beijing one after the other. Despite the constant tensions, over 30% of Taiwan’s exports - including the low-performance microprocessors needed to assemble everyday electronic products - are still destined for the PRC. But growth is slowing sharply, and many questions are being asked about the future of the Chinese economy, diminishing the attractiveness of the PRC. These uncertainties are heightening the concerns of Beijing’s neighbors, who are keen to strengthen their naval capabilities, among other things.