贝儿野外求生全集:China's naval challenge - Focus discussion - ...

来源：百度文库编辑：九乡新闻网时间：2024/04/30 12:41:29

China's naval challenge

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The United States should closely watch China’s supposed peaceful rise, but especially its increasing aggression and capabilities in the western Pacific.

In the early 1990s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) embarked on an extensive program of military modernization, aiming ultimately to drastically reduce—if not eliminate—U.S. influence in the western Pacific and emerge a global power. To achieve this objective, the PRC must have credible naval capability. Since the mid-1990s, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has received ever-increasing resources. By the end of 2010, significant progress had been made in converting the PLAN from a coastal fleet into an increasingly modern force, potentially capable of denying access to the U.S. Navy in the western Pacific.

Some U.S. observers contend that the true purpose of the PRC’s naval modernization is to “coerce or intimidate” countries allied to the United States, specifically Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. The Department of Defense believes the PLA is developing diverse sea, undersea, space, and information-warfare systems to create overlapping, multilayered offensive capabilities that extend from the PRC’s coast to the western Pacific.

The PLAN’s major peacetime missions and in operations short of war are enforcing maritime sovereignty and protecting sea routes in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea. Additionally, the PLAN is involved in protecting PRC’s shipping against pirates in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia’s coast.

With the PRC aggressively asserting territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea, its ability to enforce maritime claims in a situation short of open hostilities is directly related to its naval influence. This includes the PLAN’s size, composition, and combat potential; distance and transit time to the operating area; duration of the deployment; and PRC political/military power in relation to that of its opponent.

But the degree of naval influence is difficult to assess because political, diplomatic, and psychological factors often play large roles in crisis management and resolution. What really matters is how decision-makers and the public in a given maritime theater perceive one’s combat potential. In some cases, even a small naval presence might have enormous influence.

The PRC can potentially exert considerable naval influence in the sea areas adjacent to its coast, but not yet far into the northern or central Pacific. However, the PLAN’s capabilities to conduct out-of-area operations are bound to incrementally improve in the years ahead through its acquisition of aircraft carriers and more large amphibious and replenishment ships. Already the navy demonstrated its ability to conduct limited deployments of modern surface combatants outside normal operating areas. By December 2009, the PLAN had had four separate deployments to the Gulf of Aden.

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Currently, some say the PLAN’s Indian Ocean operations are handicapped by the lack of a string of bases and ship-repair facilities in the area, but the Chinese are making intensive efforts to obtain access to some bases and ports in friendly countries. They are helping with the building of a new port facility in Hambantota, Sri Lanka; a naval base at Sittwe, Burma; and a port facility at Chittagong, Bangladesh; and they helped with the construction of the Pakistani port of Gwadar. Reportedly the Chinese also operate an eavesdropping post at Gwadar and intelligence-gathering facilities in Bay of Bengal islands and near the Strait of Malacca.

From 1949 until the early 1980s, the PLAN’s concept was defense of the country’s coast. After vigorous debate within the PLAN, a concept called “offshore defense” was adopted in the mid-1980s, envisaging three principal missions: (1) keep the enemy within limits and resist invasion from the sea; (2) protect national territorial sovereignty; (3) safeguard the motherland’s unity and maritime rights.4 In practical terms, the new concept aimed to protect PRC interests within the “first island chain” stretching from the Kuriles, Japan’s home islands, the Ryukyus, and Taiwan to the Philippines and Borneo.

Correspondingly, the PLAN’s missions were expanded to include protection and enforcement of PRC’s maritime claims in the area, reunification with Taiwan, and defense and protection of shipping lines through the South China Sea. After the 1995-96 crisis in the Taiwan Strait, the PLAN’s focus shifted to conducting a blockade and possible invasion, along with preventing U.S. intervention in support of Taiwan. Concurrently with the steady increase in PRC’s economic strength and growing dependence on global markets, the mission seems to have extended to the “second island chain” running from the Kuriles and Japan to the Bonins, Marianas, Carolines, and easternmost part of Indonesia’s archipelago.

Air-offensive and anti-air raid major operations conducted by the air force include attacks on an enemy’s naval forces and shore bases, ports, and coastal installations and facilities. The PLA’s theory of major operations is methodical but somewhat overly rigid and stereotyped. It also seems to be dominated by the army’s views.

PLA theorists integrated all the aspects of information warfare into their operations, both offensive and defensive. They stress the need to seize and maintain information advantage in the early phases of war as a prerequisite for obtaining air and sea superiority. They also devote substantial attention to protecting information systems.

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Reportedly, the PLAN is developing capabilities to engage enemy surface ships up to 1,000 nautical miles away from the mainland coast. The primary platforms will be submarines and missile destroyers armed with long-range antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs) in addition to multirole fighters and strategic bombers carrying advanced ASCMs and long-range land-attack cruise missiles. The service’s reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities for attacking enemy surface forces are considered inadequate. However, the PLA is working to improve its ability to detect and target enemy ships at long ranges by integrating data from land-based over-the-horizon radars, imagery satellites, and seabed sonar networks.

Attacks on U.S. carrier forces, surface combatants, naval bases, ports, and logistical infrastructure in the region and follow-on forces can be complemented by the PLA Air Force’s multirole fighters and strategic bombers. The aircraft are armed with anti-radiation missiles, land-attack cruise missiles, ASCMs, GPS-guided precision munitions, and bunker-buster munitions. The objective will be to convince the United States and its allies that the cost of deployment into the region is too prohibitive. The PLA Air Force still has inadequate aerial refueling capabilities and training, but once these limitations are overcome, the service will have the ability to hold U.S. force-projection capabilities at risk.

For attacks on naval and air bases and shore installations, the PLA has large numbers of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that can travel between 620 and 1,865 miles; the 2nd Artillery Corps controls them. Although short-range ballistic missiles are not very precise, they can be extremely effective when used against large area targets such as ports and shore installations. Also in the inventory is a large number of long-range field guns and 300-mm and 400-mm multiple rocket launchers with ranges of more than 62 and 125 miles respectively, capable of hitting targets across the Taiwan Strait. (USNI)

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