Red Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy
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Combining a close knowledge of Asia and an ability to tap Chinese-language sources with naval combat experience and expertise in sea-power theory, the authors assess how the rise of Chinese sea power will affect U.S. maritime strategy in Asia. They argue that China is laying the groundwork for a sustained challenge to American primacy in maritime Asia, and to defend this hypothesis they look back to Alfred Thayer Mahan s sea-power theories, now popular with the Chinese. The book considers how strategic thought about the sea shapes Beijing s deliberations and compares China s geostrategic predicament to that of the Kaiser s Germany a century ago. It examines the Chinese navy s operational concepts, tactics, and capabilities and appraises China s ballistic-missile submarine fleet. The authors conclude that unless Washington adapts, China will present a challenge to America s strategic position.
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Sea power with Chinese characteristics,
China’s maritime capacity, two associate professors of strategy at the US Naval War College argue in an important new work, is close to reaching a point where its theories will be put into practice. What this commanding of the seas “with Chinese characteristics” will look like, and what it will imply for regional stability and the ability of the US to remain involved in the region, is the focus of Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes’ Red Star Over the Pacific.
While there is no dearth of studies on the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), efforts to understand it have for the most part been limited to the Order of Battle — that is, tallying up what China currently deploys, plans to deploy and is developing. Much less effort, however, has been put into understanding China’s maritime doctrine, and this is where Yoshihara and Holmes’ book, which assesses a variety of Chinese-language sources and pronouncements on the subject, provides helpful illumination.
As “Western apathy toward traditional sea power” manifests itself, the authors write, “Asians bolt together fleets with gusto.” Spearheading this effort is China, which has already built power-projection capabilities for what they call a “post-Taiwan” environment. Whether this rise will be benign and focused on non-traditional challenges (such as anti-piracy and protecting sea lanes) rather than “pounding away at enemy fleets” is something that can, if only imperfectly, be extracted from trends in Chinese defense circles.
Although the authors do not predict a cataclysmic clash of navies as seen during World War II between the US and Japan, they nevertheless argue that the “material ingredients for competition and rivalry are certainly present in the tight confines of the East Asian littoral.”
In such a rapidly evolving environment, what Chinese naval experts are reading, saying and writing can provide important clues. And what many Chinese are reading, the authors tell us, is Alfred Thayer Mahan, the 19th century US Navy flag officer and military historian whose concept of sea power had an enormous influence on navies around the world. If Chinese strategists are selective in their usage of Mahan’s theories and accept its martial themes uncritically, it is possible Beijing will follow along the lines of Germany and Japan to sea power, which in the authors’ view would imply dim prospects for the region.
While the Chinese defense community is not monolithic, some Chinese analysts have tended to “gravitate toward the more memorable passages of Mahan’s works for their own narrow purposes, ratifying predetermined conclusions” with Mahan furnishing the “geopolitical logic for an offensive Chinese naval strategy” and Mao Zedong thought providing the tactics to execute that strategy.
In some quarters, Chinese theorists have argued that China should achieve a national resurgence from “continental civilization” — Mao’s inward-looking strategy — to “maritime civilization” and have made the case for national greatness as an inextricable component of sea power, a position that Yoshihara and Holmes see as “unmistakably Mahanian.”
Based on their reading of the Chinese debate and signaling on its maritime strategy, the authors conclude that China’s march to the sea and efforts to deny access to others will not end with Taiwan (though securing it would provide substantial advantages in power projection within and beyond the first island chain). China, they argue, will “strive to achieve and ensure access for itself — and amass the capacity to deny access to others — in concentric geographic rings ripping out from the Chinese coastline.”
As it built its capabilities, the authors argue that Beijing carefully managed its maritime rise “to avoid setting in motion a cycle of naval challenges and response like the one that drove Anglo-German enmity,” and therefore have so far succeeded where Germany failed. A factor that has helped China assuage fears of its naval rise, they write, is that unlike the German case, the Chinese naval threat remains largely distant and abstract to its potential targets, especially in the case of US policymakers and taxpayers. Given its geographical proximity to the UK, Germany had no such room to maneuver and an alarmed London mobilized accordingly to keep the scorpion in the bottle.
Despite cutbacks and other priorities, there is no doubt that the US remains a major actor and guarantor of security in Asia. As the Chinese navy expands its area of operation — and barring a US pullout from the region — the potential for friction between the two navies will increase. To Chinese eyes, the uncontested US presence in the East Asian seas is akin to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) strategy of “encirclement and suppression” during the Chinese Civil War, the authors write, adding that the response to this encirclement is likely to…
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|Has Mahan Influenced Chinese Naval Thinking? Should the U.S. be concerned about China’s growing naval power?,
A more appropriate title for this book is “Red Star Over the Western Pacific”. In 9 chapters and 224 pages, Yoshihara and Holmes eloquently demonstrate that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) can conduct anti-access and area denial strategies against the USN to the 2nd island chain. Essentially, China has a “Great Wall at Sea” in the Western Pacific (attributed to NWU’s Bernard Cole) and the United States would be wise to consider its diplomatic and military options. Should the U.S. be concerned? The answer depends on whether you consider East Asia vital to America’s national security. Please note that if you are looking to get to the heart of the book, read Chapter 7 on China’s soft power.
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|Red Star Over Th e Pacific,
Although quite short, this is a good book covering the rapid rise of the PLAN (People’s Liberation Army-Navy) and its strategies to meet the challenges of the USN in Asia-Pacific region. It is a timely read as currently serious disputes are happening in the South China and East China Seas; and accusations of incursions in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan/East Sea. There is no question that China Navy (PLAN) has intentions to replace the USN’s domination in these waters (1st Island Chain) within 10 years, and pose a major challenge in the Western Pacific (2nd Island Chain) and the Indian Ocean in about 20 years time. Suggest all serving Naval Officers, researchers and those interested in Asian maritime affairs make it a point to read this book and be kept updated. After all it could not only be “The Red Star over the Pacific”, but if care is not taken now, and there is no naval balance of power, Mao’s dream of “THE EAST IS RED” could become a reality. Advill
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