2 August 2020, NIICE Commentary 5759
Dr. Swasti Rao
No big power in the run up to the top spot of a global hegemon adheres to the established rules of engagement. They create their own. And it is up to the rest of the world to decode what those rules are, how they develop, how they are executed and what exactly they wish to achieve. Often while talking about China, this out of the box thinking is an absolute need of the hour, as it leads us to look through the obscure hints that China drops all over the world.
Discretely as China ventures, as and when, into the grey overlapping zones to address the choke points’ problems and challenges regarding their Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) expansion, it gets incumbent upon us to decode this discrete evolving of China’s pursuits and apparatus to achieve such hybrid ends.
Let us analyze an interesting but an obscure correlation between economic interests and the modernization of People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) which will give an insight into how China has championed the proxy.
Maritime commerce accounts for 90 percent of China’s imports and exports which ensures economic development. Chinese economic growth also heavily relies on imported natural resources, specially oil, a dependence which is likely to keep increasing. Hence, the security of Sea lines of communications (SLOCs) providing access to Europe and to the Middle East and back has become crucial in sustaining China’s development. The vulnerability of Chinese economy with the SLOCs, however, lies in the number of choke points and hence protection of the same has been a subject of burgeoning research in recent times.
PLAN: The Protector of China’s Economic Interests
Beijing has been using PLAN as a tool to protect its economic interests by protecting the SLOCs, helping realize the grand vision of BRI and thereby establishing its “great power “image – all of which then lends sustainability to and legitimacy to Communist Party of China (CCP) rule and their crushing of democracy back home.
This becomes an important consideration because China has never had a war at sea. Then how does China maintain a world class navy and sustain and increase their combat readiness in the absence of any classic combat or a war scenario? They also have to protect their extensive coastlines (32k km) where their main industrial cities and harbors are situated. Basically, it is clear that maintaining a powerful navy is important to them but as to how have the Chinese done it, is where the interesting bit lies.
During the tenure of President Hu Jintao Period (2002-2012), MOOTW (Military Operations Other Than War) became a tool of statecraft- peacekeeping, anti piracy, disaster relief, medical support, counter terrorism missions. Those missions served as the Chinese narrative of a powerful but a “responsible stakeholder”. Similarly, Shift was seen in the Maritime Policy from near seas to far seas which led to the modernization of the PLAN in achieving and enhancing Blue water capabilities with the clear intention of having overseas bases.
Moreover, during Xi Jinping Period (2012-present), there was urge to sharpen its “combat readiness“ which is reflected in 2012 and 2015 Defense White Paper. The 2012 Defense White Paper decisively elevated the maritime domain in China’s strategic thinking as Beijing considered that the most likely conflict scenario will occur at sea; reflected best in the Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. Similarly, the 2015 Defense white paper shifted focus from offshore water defense to open seas protection, confirming a new turn in the PLAN’s modernization towards a blue water navy and power projection.
Furthermore, Xi’s main concern is also the preservation of the conditions necessary to continue the grand Chinese economic development which depend on their access to the Indian ocean. This is one key to understanding the development of the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) part of the BRI. The MSR presents China’s most vital SLOCs. There have been active efforts to develop strategic and economic relationships along the MSR to break the US encirclement created by Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” and now to break Trump’s Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA).
Role of Anti-Piracy Missions in the modernization of PLAN
Anti-piracy operations off the Somalia coast, in the Gulf of Aden (GOA) is the region where China’s involvement in anti –piracy began. Andrew Erickson has comprehensively outlined this scenario in his seminal work of 2015. In the background of a lack of stable government in Somalia, piracy started to develop off Somali shores in the 2000s. The problem became so grave that the UNSC adopted a resolution in June 2008 (UNSCRes 1816) condemning piracy in Horn of Africa. This was followed by a string of resolutions no 1838, 1846 and 1851 requesting nations to fight in the high seas off Somalia. The following responses are noteworthy: EU, NATO, US led Combined Maritime Forces, Japan, Russia, South Korea and India; all these countries participated independently. As a result of these operations piracy was almost completely eradicated by 2012 (while 176 attacks were recorded in 2011, only 35 in 2012 and literally 0 in 2015).
China started to participate only after the Chinese vessels were attacked in December 2008. The PLAN unilaterally (not in a coalition) deployed an ETF (Escort Task Force) in January 2009 to escort ships in the GOA. In spite of improved cooperation with other task forces, it is noteworthy that then the ETF never participated in any coalition because at that time their navy was not as modernized as the rest.
PLAN’s ETF
The 2009 ETF mission was called SHADE (Shared Awareness and De-confliction) and its subsequent improved cooperation with other navies demonstrated the Chinese wish to be seen as a responsible stakeholder vis a vis piracy. By 2015, the number of escort mission deployment reached 20 and by April 2019, this number reached 32. The interesting catch is that despite piracy being contained successfully, the PLAN continued to be present in these regions and the number of Chinese deployments continued to grow.
PLAN, which is more readily aligned and experienced for MOOTW, no longer has anti-piracy missions as the main focus of these escorts. The piracy in GOA has simply become a justification for PLAN’s presence in this key area for Chinese economy.
Scholars consider anti-piracy missions as a spring board for China to expand its maritime security operations; for example, in evacuation of 35,000 Chinese nationals from Libya in 2011, of 800 Chinese and other nationals from Yemen in 2015, in the destruction of chemical weapons off Syria and in the search for Malaysia airlines’ flight 370 etc. A widening of scope can be seen which is improving Chinese power projection capabilities, acquiring operational experience in a real operational environment and protecting Chinese interest abroad because GOA is ideally suited for accessing some of the key areas of economic interest – the Bab al Mandeb choke point, the Red sea, the Persian Gulf, East Africa and all the way up to the Mediterranean Sea.
Chinese Peacekeepers
When it comes to protecting Chinese economic interests abroad, the role of Chinese peacekeepers has been met with suspicion. There are 1000 Chinese peacekeepers in South Sudan (East Africa), in missions in Congo (Central Africa), Liberia (Far West Africa), Mali (West Africa) etc. who help protect Chinese economic interests. A little research into Chinese investments in those regions will reveal how the presence of peacekeepers is helping that equation.
Acquisition of PLAN Military Base in Djibouti
It is officially the Logistics Support Base and is justified as supporting China’s commitments to international anti-piracy, peacekeeping and other operations, as well as, protecting growing overseas assets, evacuating Chinese nationals in crisis situations and also to counter terrorism. China passed a law in 2015 that provided a domestic legal foundation for overseas counter terrorism and intelligence gathering operations which made an overseas base crucial. The Chinese have already acquired overseas bases at Maldives and Hambanthota in Sri Lanka, Chittagong in Bangladesh, Gwadar in Pakistan and Chabahar in Iran are in process.
Chinese Anti-Piracy Missions which started as the fight against piracy off the coast of Somalia has today become a hybrid project that work in collaboration with protecting other Chinese economic interests abroad while still maintaining their justification under fighting anti-piracy. This clever Chinese endeavor is partially complemented by Chinese peacekeepers in UN Missions which work tirelessly to promote peace and stability in war torn regions, many of which are sites of heavy Chinese investments. With the world grappling to makes sense of China’s puzzling hybrid projects, the example of PLAN helps shed some light on the same.
