China sails into uncharted waters

The end of 2008 saw a Chinese fleet set sail for Africa – the first time since the 15th century – on modern China’s first-ever potential combat mission beyond its neighbouring waters.

Weeks later, China published a new Defence White Paper. While insisting on the peaceful and purely defensive nature of China’s military posturing, the paper also stresses what it describes as continuing ‘threats to China’s unity and security from “separatist forces” in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang’.

‘China is faced with the superiority of developed countries economically, scientifically and technologically, as well as militarily’, the 95-page White Paper says. ‘It also faces strategic manoeuvres and containment from the outside while having to face disruption and sabotage by separatist and hostile forces from the inside.’

The paper gives details never previously revealed about the internal organisation of China’s military, and past trends in its defence spending. It confirms the official figure for 2007’s defence spending at US$52 billion. While the 2008 military budget has not been released, officials last year said total spending for the year would amount to US$61 billion, a 17 per cent increase. The Pentagon claims that this is a carefully massaged understatement of a real total which is perhaps nearly twice or even three times greater.

Does this presage a new Chinese military build-up? What are the implications for Africa as China’s role has, until now, been distinguished from that of the US and former colonial powers as a result of its lack of a military presence?

An alarmist reading would not be justified. To begin, the naval mission was China’s contribution – welcomed by the US – to the international naval anti-piracy patrol off the coast of Somalia.

The task of the UN-sanctioned international naval mission will be made easier by the regional agreement between Arab and African countries signed in Djibouti last month. This initiative will enable the implementation of an international monitoring centre similar to the successful Singapore-based body which works to counter piracy in the Straits of Malacca.

However, this is only the latest facet of China’s increasing participation in international peacekeeping efforts. According to a recent review from the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China is the 14th largest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, providing more troops, police, and observers than any other permanent member of the Security Council.

Of this total, some three quarters are located in Africa, and China plans further increases in its contributions to such conflict hot-spots as the DRC, Haiti, Liberia, and Sudan.

One advantage of this active role is the promotion of China’s image as a responsible member of the international community, enhancing its reputation as a ‘peace-loving’ power in contrast to the US and other Western actors. Moreover, it simultaneously serves as a quiet reminder of China’s growing role as a worldwide strategic player.

In addition, as the SIPRI paper points out, ‘it also appears that participation in peacekeeping activities abroad carries important military applications and lessons for the PLA [People’s Liberation Army">. According to the recently released Chinese defence white paper, more than 11 000 Chinese peacekeepers have been deployed to 18 UN operations. These contributions, including repeated deployments of engineering battalions and police units, provide useful and practical experiences for Chinese security forces and help improve their responsiveness, riot-control capabilities, coordination of military emergency command systems and ability to conduct MOOTW [military operations other than war"> at home, a concept much touted in China’s recently released defence white paper. These benefits will be reinforced if, as expected, Chinese forces increasingly take on more dangerous and possibly combat missions as part of their expanded peacekeeping activities.’

Thus, China’s emphasis on peacekeeping could still be seen as a gradual edging towards a more independent and powerful military role. There are certainly pressures pointing in this direction as an inevitable consequence of China’s growing global commercial involvement and the subsequent need, as with all other and previous global trading nations, to demonstrate its ability to protect its nationals, safeguard its trade routes, and defend and advance its national interests.

All great imperial powers could be shown to have started from these seemingly innocent beginnings; a closer look at the Defence White Paper will certainly provide ammunition for this view. The paper’s implications for Africa are less clear, and depend in part on Africa’s own ability to define and act on its collective interests.

But just how large is China’s defence budget, and how significant is its recent increase? According to the New York Times:

‘China says its defense expenditure for 2007 was around $52 billion and while its 2008 defense budget has not been published, the total spend was announced last year to be $61 billion. However, the Pentagon says these figures are grossly underreported. In its annual report to Congress, it estimated China's total military-related spending for 2007 to be between $97 billion and $139 billion. China argues that its military budget was only 1.38 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007, while U.S. defense expenditure was 4.5 percent of GDP. Experts also point to the absolute size of the United States' defense budgets to show the asymmetric comparison. The 2008 U.S. defense budget was $ 481.4 billion plus $141.7 billion for the “Global War on Terror”.’

The White Paper itself puts recent increases into a historical context of previous relative decline, arguing that from 1978 to 1987 the average annual increase of defence expenditure was only 3.5 per cent, while GDP rose an average 14.1 per cent and state expenditure by an average 10.4 per cent. According to the report, China's annual defence expenditure, as a share of GDP and of state expenditure, dropped respectively from 4.6 per cent and 14.96 per cent in 1978 to 1.74 per cent and 9.27 per cent in 1987.

From 1988 to 1997, ‘to make up for the inadequacy of defense development and maintain national security and unity’, China gradually increased its defence expenditure. In this period, defence expenditure rose by an annual average of 14.5 per cent, while GDP rose by an average 20.7 per cent and state expenditure by 15.1 per cent. From 1998 to 2007, ‘to maintain national security and development and meet the requirements of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) with Chinese characteristics’, the average annual increase in defence expenditure was 15.9 per cent, while GDP rose by an average 12.5 per cent and state expenditure by 18.4 per cent.

In comparison, US defence analyst Colonel Chet Richards has argued that using methods analogous to those employed to account for China’s ‘true’ rather than ‘official’ military spending, purportedly official US military spending of US$600 billion could be discredited, revealing a more accurate budget of at least US$863 billion, and if realistic estimates of future costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are included, military spending could reach as much as US$1 trillion.

Nonetheless, recent trends reflected in the White Paper, do indicate that China is moving towards a more pro-active military stance. Jonathan Holslag of the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies follows the writings of Chinese military analysts and has argued in the past against the more paranoid perceptions of a military ‘yellow peril’ emanating from certain circles in Washington. (For a particularly ripe example of this genre see Robert Kaplan’s ‘How we would fight China’).

However, in a recent study Holslag argues that ‘the question should no longer be whether the People’s Republic will extend the reach of its security policy, but how it considers doing this and what could be the options for new synergies… As China is transformed into a trading nation with global ambitions, its national security interests are becoming globalized too.’

‘China’s development has arrived at an important stage where its initial reluctance to project military force might make place for a more assertive use of military capabilities in its foreign policy… Thus far, China has given the impression that it will become the first great power that does not use military force to back its economic growth… Yet, this restraint is not unique and is definitely no guarantee for its future security strategy.’

Holslag points out that maritime powers as diverse as medieval Venice, 15th century Portugal, the US under Theodore Roosevelt, and Japan under the Meiji emperor ‘would all refer to open seas, free trade and higher moral ground as reasons to protect their national economic interests abroad with the use of force’ and ‘neither particular geographic features, nor the willingness to be perceived as a responsible power prevent security identities from changing’.

Initial aggressive intent is not necessarily the issue; it is in the nature of military competition that what one player sees as precautionary defensive measures against possible threats will be seen by other players as potential threats against which precautionary counter-measures are needed in turn. Some military professionals, though by no means all, will be predisposed to see military threats as requiring military solutions, and more generally to see all political and economic relations as ‘zero-sum’ contests amenable to military force.

The Taiwan Straits have long been a potential flash-point for this reason. China sees its determination to prevent Taiwanese independence as a legitimate defensive posture, and its declared position of seeking a peaceful resolution on the grounds of ‘one-country – two systems’ as a sign of its peaceful intent, in view of its self-evident right if it so wished to resolve the issue by force.

Chinese missiles pointing towards Taiwan and the nation’s estimated 300,000 troops on the coast opposite Taiwan are seen as a defensive deterrent against any possibility of the rebel province being used as a base for hostile attack, and as a disincentive to any potential move to independence. Nonetheless, for Taiwan and its US supporters, this posture is seen as a threat against which Taiwan should be able to defend itself by updating its US-supplied weaponry.

When the US announced a US$6.5 billion arms deal with Taiwan last year, China responded with strong protests and a suspension of military talks. Since then, the situation has cooled significantly after the return of the Kuomintang to power with the election of President Ma Ying-jeou.

Taiwan has announced cuts in troop numbers and China has called for military consultations leading to a formal armistice agreement, as well as a comprehensive economic treaty and the possibility of autonomous Taiwanese representation in international bodies such as the World Health Organization (WTO).

This decrease in tension leaves substantial concerns about the security of China’s sea lanes. As Holslag notes:

‘In 2005, President Hu Jintao promulgated the “Malacca dilemma” and warned that new strategies were needed to address the attempts of “certain major powers” that aim at controlling the strait under the pretext of combating piracy. The director of the National Defense University stressed the importance of the Indian Ocean as the main energy lifeline and called a major strategic task to protect strategic channels by building up deterrence and combat capacity. At the Maritime Conference in Qingdao, Liu Guangding, an advisor to CNOOC, stated that “resource security” should become China’s priority in its maritime power strategy and that China should watch the policies of other countries…

‘Beijing has approved an ambitious plan to boost its strategic lift platforms. “Mobility and flexibility are key for addressing new challenges”, Wang Hongshe writes in an article that was published in leading state-controlled media such as Liberation Army Daily and Xinhua. “A policy should be implemented to combine domestic development and acquisition of large military aircraft, transport helicopters and large landing ships to enhance our military’s three-dimensional mobility...it is likely that China will be able to deploy several battle groups in low-intensity conflicts abroad in 10 to 15 years”.’

As long as this solely relates to China extending its area of concern outwards from the Straits of Taiwan into the broader eastern and southern Pacific, it may seem to be of little relevance to Africa. Even this would be a mistaken view as the US perception of increased Chinese naval and military activity and potential, however legitimate and defensive, would feed the more paranoid US military circles which have already begun to alter their naval dispositions in order to deal with a perceived Chinese ‘menace’.

According to one west coast US press report:

‘[T]op Pentagon commanders are responding to China's strategies by shifting more surface ships, submarines and service members from the East Coast to the West Coast. Two attack submarines have been moved to the Point Loma Naval Base, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson will join two other carriers next year at North Island Naval Air Station and the first batch of Littoral Combat Ships will be assigned to San Diego.’

However, the same report adds that ‘not everyone agrees that America needs to counter China's military build-up. Critics said Chinese naval and air forces would need decades to catch up to US ones in terms of technology. They also said the two nations' sizable nuclear arsenals make conventional warfare highly unlikely.’ . ‘It strikes me as fantasy’, said Chet Richards, an Atlanta-based defence analyst and retired Air Force Reserve colonel.

The current economic crisis reinforces the economic interdependence between China and the US, creating what Lawrence Summers, the chief economic adviser for President Barack Obama, has called the ‘balance of financial terror’.

However, closer economic ties and mounting military competition can go together and if mishandled can lead to disaster as the build-up to the First World War showed. China’s desire for a growing independent naval role in the Pacific will also leak into the Indian Ocean through concern over the Straits of Malacca.

This raises the potential for military competition with India. Holslag finds that:

‘Therefore, the Indian Ocean is the most important theater for China to show how far it will go in projecting naval power to defend its economic interests. Chinese defense analysts have become vociferous in stressing that the Chinese government should not be hesitant. In Liberation Army Daily, two navy officers claimed that the main national maritime interests were located along a belt of islands from Taiwan, via the Indonesian Archipelago, all the way to Diego Garcia, and that the Chinese navy consequently has to consider this corridor as its legitimate offshore defense perimeter. Most experts underline that the pressing need for resource security no longer allows Beijing’s policy of self-restraint towards the Indian Ocean region.’

Nor is China’s participation in the Somali naval taskforce purely disinterested. It is also based on a legitimate concern for China’s own nationals and its merchant fleet. ‘Around 1,265 Chinese commercial vessels passed the Gulf of Aden last year, including tankers carrying 60 per cent of China’s imported oil from the Middle East, as well as shipments of raw material from Africa. Also, Europe is now China’s largest trade partner, with many goods passing through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.’

In December 2008 the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Liu Jianchao said that Somali pirates had attacked one fifth of Chinese vessels passing through Somali waters from January to November last year, hijacking 15 vessels.

Holslag quotes an unidentified Chinese diplomat as stating that ‘India should get accustomed to a peaceful Chinese naval presence in Southern Asia’. No doubt it should, but given the nature of military rivalries some members of India’s military will see this as a threat to which they must respond.

This may seem absurd. How can a modest sea patrol or token task force signify a wish for military confrontation? Surely it is obvious that, as Holslag suggests:

‘China will not be able to safeguard its maritime lifelines if it enters into an open conflict with India, Russia or the United States… In addition, China’s economic interests are too dispersed to defend in case of a full-fledged competition with another rival. Burden sharing will be an evident option for a trading nation whose economic empire stretches across most of the globe.’

However, it is not only size that counts. China’s military modernisation is centred on the concept of ‘Revolution in Military Affairs [RMA"> with Chinese Characteristics’ – a highly technological concept of asymmetrical warfare which includes advanced cyber-warfare techniques capable of disrupting an opponent’s electronic control systems and thus incapacitating a physically superior force. It is this which motivates American fears. The New York Times reports that:

‘…as part of this modernization agenda, China is acquiring advanced weapons systems from foreign suppliers as well as trying to develop its own. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in a statement to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2009, said the areas of greatest concern are cyber- and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, submarines, and ballistic missiles.’ ‘Modernization in these areas could threaten America's primary means of projecting power and helping allies in the Pacific: our bases, air and sea assets, and the networks that support them’, he said.

In its November 2008 report to congress, the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission noted that cyberspace is a critical vulnerability of the US government and economy. The report warns ‘China is aggressively pursuing cyber warfare capabilities that may provide it with an asymmetric advantage against the United States. In a conflict situation, this advantage would reduce current U.S. conventional military dominance.’

These fears lie behind US embargoes on supply of militarily-relevant technology to China. Significantly, the Financial Times reported on 22 February that:

‘Think-tanks close to the government have been given the task of devising concessions that China can seek in recognition of its bigger role in international economic affairs. Zha Xiaogang, of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, has published an “economic wish-list”, which includes a relaxation of US restrictions on exports of sophisticated technology to China.’

The destabilising effects of the RMA could therefore mean that despite China’s non-military African presence, and however modest and legitimate its presence in the Indian Ocean is, the objective logic of military competition could still lead the continent to feel the wake of a new round of military tension.

Can African states rise to the challenge, take collective control of their security and insist through the African Union on making Africa and its waters a ‘continent of peace’?

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*Stephen Marks is a research associate with Fahamu’s China in Africa programme.
*Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.