The Chinese Communist Party has provoked the Cold War between China and the United States with a series of military threatening actions. The Communist Party’s highly ambitious Indo-Pacific strategy can be broadly judged from the 10 years of expansion and readiness activities of the Chinese navy. The basic goal of this strategy is to both carry out the nuclear threat of strategic nuclear submarines against the United States and also seek to control the countries of the South Pacific. Since 1994, the Chinese Communist Party’s claim of “sovereignty” in the South China Sea has been extinguished by the entry into force of the International Convention on the Law of the Sea. Since then, the Chinese Communist Party, in an effort to build a “deep sea fortress” for its strategic nuclear submarines in order to nuclear threaten the United States, has begun to seize international waters in the South China Sea and build islands and military bases. In the future, the maritime offensive and defense between Chinese and U.S. forces will focus on the first island chain.
I. U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy
On January 12 this year, the U.S. National Security Council published the United States Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific (United States Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific). The strategy, developed in February 2018, sets out the U.S. strategic approach in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from 2018 to 2020, with the strategic objectives of deterring China from using force against the United States and its allies and partners, and developing capabilities and methods to defeat China’s actions in various conflicts. The release of the document “reveals the geopolitical and national security challenges that the Biden administration will inherit,” according to the U.S. network Axios News. Clearly, the Trump administration, which developed the strategy, is aware that China poses a considerable threat to U.S. national security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, and that the United States will need to strengthen its military deployment in the region in the future.
This strategy covers mainly the Central Indo-Pacific region of the Indo-Pacific, including the South China Sea, the waters of the Indonesian archipelago, the northern coasts of the Philippines and Australia, and the surrounding waters of the islands of New Guinea, Micronesia, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga. The Central Indo-Pacific region was one of the key areas of operations in the Pacific War, when U.S. and Australian air, land and sea forces fought together against the ferocious Japanese offensive. Today, the Central Indo-Pacific region is once again an important area of international concern. The U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy provides for denying China air and sea control within the “first island chain” in the event of conflict; defending the countries and regions of the first island chain, including Taiwan; and achieving dominance in all areas outside the first island chain.
The U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy was formulated three years ago, before the Chinese Communist Party’s military threat to the central Indo-Pacific region became apparent, so the U.S. strategy placed more emphasis on the security of countries related to the first island chain, and did not specifically outline a vision or layout for strategic defense in the central Indo-Pacific region. This strategy is quite prescient and in fact anticipates China’s possible next military moves. We know more today about the Chinese Communist Party’s demonstrated power ambitions in the South China Sea than we did three years ago. I have already described the U.S. military’s current Perception and judgment of the CCP’s military threat in my February 23 article on this website, “The U.S. Army’s Latest Assessment of the Situation in the U.S.-China Military Confrontation”.
Second, what kind of Indo-Pacific strategy does the CCP have?
The U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy is designed to guard against the CCP threat, so does the CCP have its Indo-Pacific strategy? It does not matter whether it uses this name or not, but it is certain that it formulated such a strategic plan 10 years ago and has been advancing its Indo-Pacific strategy step by step for 10 years. Of course, the CCP’s Indo-Pacific strategy is a top-secret document, and we cannot expect its official media to disclose it, because it is a nakedly aggressive strategy that could be widely and strongly condemned internationally if leaked.
The Communist Party’s Indo-Pacific strategy can be roughly judged from its naval expansion and preparedness activities over the past 10 years. The basic goal of this strategy is to both impose the nuclear threat of strategic nuclear submarines on the United States while also seeking to control the countries of the South Pacific. The strategy is very ambitious, and it has roughly three goals for the near future: first, to essentially control the international waters of the South China Sea, turning it into a de facto Chinese internal sea that may allow foreign surface vessels to pass through during normal times, but will be closed to navigation during war. To achieve this, the CCP will further build naval bases on islands off the coasts of Indonesia and the Philippines to protect the space for its nuclear submarine fleet, while forcing the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia into near-shore surface defense; second, open up the underwater shipping lanes in the Bus Strait and off the northern coast of Australia, and to this end, control Papua New Guinea and isolate Australia and Taiwan; third, expand the strategic nuclear submarine fleet and strengthen its activities in the Central and Eastern Pacific to achieve a multi-pronged nuclear threat to the United States.
China is not simply trying to control the airspace in the South China Sea by forcibly occupying reefs and building military bases, but also to control the more than 3 million square kilometers of the South China Sea to protect its underwater nuclear submarine hideaways. The Chinese Communist Party’s foreign propaganda media, Dovetail News, published an article on March 4 last year titled “Decoding China’s strategic nuclear submarine “fortress sea area” in the South China Sea, China and the United States underwater battle without sound”, which spells out China’s strategic purpose of forcibly occupying the high seas waters of the South China Sea. This article said, “The key is that the South China Sea belongs to the ‘fortress sea area’ in China’s creation. ……. After the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union put forward the ‘fortress sea area ‘ strategy, that is, to heavily fortify a certain sea area to create a maritime fortress, and to set the launch positions of nuclear ballistic missile submarines in the fortress sea area to enhance the ‘second nuclear strike’ capability ……. China has chosen to walk on two legs, both to break the island chain blockade into the Western Pacific and to establish a ‘fortress sea zone’ ……. The Chinese military has made the South China Sea China’s ‘fortress sea area’ – a launch site for nuclear ballistic missile submarines. The South China Sea covers an area of 3.5 million square kilometers and has an average water depth of 1,212 meters, especially in the South China Sea basin in the middle of the South China Sea where the water depth ranges from 3,400 meters to 3,600 meters, making it ideal for large submarine activities such as nuclear ballistic missile submarines. China’s control over the Xisha and Zhongsha Islands and the reclamation of land in the Spratly Islands has greatly strengthened China’s control over the South China Sea basin …….”
Chinese “sovereignty” in the South China Sea disappeared in 1994
The Chinese Communist Party’s claim of “sovereignty” over the South China Sea originated with the Republic of China. The Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of China hired Zheng Ziyao, a professor in the Department of Geography at Northwestern University, as a special member of the Ministry of the Interior in 1946 to accompany a naval ship on an expedition to the South China Sea to delineate the national boundaries of the islands in the South China Sea. At the end of 1946, Zheng Ziyao used 11 dashed lines in the shape of a “U” to circle China’s sovereign waters in the South China Sea on the map, extending all the way to the offshore area near Malaysia and the Philippines. This line drawn on a small-scale map was only a rough declaration of sovereignty; it could not contain coordinates, so it could not be used to determine national boundaries. However, at that Time, there was no international law of the sea, and the neighboring countries, except the Philippines, were not yet independent, and their suzerain states were not concerned with the issue of maritime boundaries. Therefore, there was no international dispute after the Republic of China circled its sovereign waters in the South China Sea with a “U” shaped dotted line on the map.
The 11-segment line was taken over by the Chinese Communist Party after the founding of the country. However, in 1982, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Law of the Sea, which specifies the definition of “archipelago”, the exclusive economic zone, the continental shelf, the ownership of seabed resources, and the arbitration of disputes. The territorial sea is defined as 12 nautical miles outside the territory of a state; the territory of islands is defined as reefs that are submerged at high tide and unsuitable for long-term habitation do not belong to the territory of any state. Although the Chinese Communist Party was aware that this convention in fact denied China’s so-called “sovereignty” in the South China Sea, at that time the Chinese Communist Party did not have an Indo-Pacific strategy for foreign expansion and was in a period of diplomatic “hiding its light”, so it not only recognized the international convention on the law of the sea, but also became a ratifier of this convention. The International Convention on the Law of the Sea was ratified on November 16, 1994. In 1995, at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen declared his willingness to abide by UNCLOS and to resolve disputes peacefully with relevant countries in accordance with the spirit of UNCLOS. However, as the Chinese Communist Party’s military strength increased, it began planning to take control of the South China Sea for military purposes. From this point on, the Chinese Communist Party turned its face away from UNCLOS, not only reversing its previous position, but also openly and completely trampling on this international convention.
In 2015, the Philippines filed an international judicial arbitration with the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague over whether the waters within the “U” shaped dotted line in the South China Sea belonged to China’s territorial waters due to China’s massive construction of artificial islands on seven reefs in the South China Sea, and on July 12, 2016, the Permanent International Arbitration Tribunal issued its ruling on the South China Sea case. To borrow Qian Qichen’s words back then, the ruling rejected China’s territorial sea claim “in the spirit of the International Convention on the Law of the Sea.”
The tribunal found that even if China had some historical rights to the resources of the waters of the South China Sea, the Convention’s exclusive economic zone provisions denied China’s sovereignty in the South China Sea after the Convention entered into force in 1994. The tribunal found that China’s claim to sovereignty over the maritime zone within the “U” shaped imaginary line (known to the Chinese Communist Party as the “nine-dash line”) had no basis in international law. As for the sovereignty of the islands and reefs, according to the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, any rocky reef that cannot sustain human habitation does not belong to any country. The International Tribunal’s ruling explains in this regard as follows: Suitability for human habitation is defined as the objective carrying capacity of an island or reef to maintain a stable human community in its natural state and not dependent on external resources; the government personnel stationed on many islands and reefs in the South China Sea now depend on external support and are not dependent on the island’s resources for long-term survival in their natural state. Therefore, China has no sovereignty over any islands in the Spratlys in the South China Sea, and even less over its man-made islands.
After the ruling was announced, China refused to accept it. However, the International Convention on the Law of the Sea provides that the tribunal’s award is definitive and binding, regardless of the participation of the disputing parties. However, the Hague International Arbitral Tribunal does not have judicial enforcement capabilities. Even if I openly trample international law underfoot, there is nothing you can do about it.
The Implementation Process of CCP’s Indo-Pacific Strategy
The reason why we judge that the CCP’s Indo-Pacific Strategy was formulated about 10 years ago is that the concrete implementation plan was launched in 2013 after it was formulated.
According to the Chinese media, China has been building islands on the reefs in the South China Sea since 2013, and has built seven islands so far, artificially filling in 2,000 acres of land in 2015 alone, realizing the “fortification of small islands and position of large islands”; it first built islands on Chigua Reef, Yongshun Reef, and Nanxiao Reef, which are geographically located and close to each other. Then, the completion of the airstrip on Yongshun Reef, which allows for the landing and take-off of various aircraft, signifies that China actually has the ability to control the airspace in the South China Sea; a new island construction project has recently begun on Niujiao Reef, which is located in a position to control the main underwater waterway from the South China Sea all the way south to Indonesia. At the same time, the CCP recently passed the Marine Police Law, which declares that large CCP marine police vessels have the right to attack foreign vessels in the international waters of the South China Sea, with the aim of preventing Philippine and Malaysian naval vessels from approaching the naval bases built by the CCP at the gates of their countries.
In fact, in parallel with the island-building project, the Chinese navy has also launched a huge dredging project to excavate a submarine base in a cave several dozen meters underwater, a dozen meters above water, and possibly several kilometers deep, in the mountain side adjacent to the bay on the eastern side of the Yulin military port in Sanya, Hainan Island. Now the Chinese Communist Party’s nuclear submarines can quietly sneak out of Yulin Bay from underwater and hide in the deep waters of the South China Sea, making it difficult for the United States to detect them. In order to keep other countries’ submarines, especially the U.S. submarines, away from the underwater hideouts of CCP submarines in the South China Sea, it has to control the vast waters of the South China Sea and establish a “fortress sea area” for its nuclear submarine fleet.
Since the formation of the Navy’s nuclear submarine cave base and “fortress sea area” in 2018, in 2019 the CCP began to implement its strategic nuclear submarine strike plan, as reported by Dovetail News on March 4 last year, “to break through the island chain blockade and enter the Western Pacific Ocean “. The aim is to take the initiative and find war opportunities. Such a strategy means that the CCP’s strategic nuclear submarine fleet is not just a passive deterrent for a “second nuclear strike,” but is also prepared to act as an offensive force for a “first nuclear strike. Of course, its target is not Taiwan, but the United States.
V. Recent Activities of the Chinese Navy in the Northeast Passage and South Passage of the “Fortress Sea Area
One is the southwest of Taiwan and the Bus Strait, the other is the Java Sea of Indonesia, eastward to the northern part of Australia, then into the South Pacific, and then northward to the North American continent.
The first thing the Chinese Communist Party wants to open is an underwater route for nuclear submarines through the Bus Strait, which is the closest to the United States, and which began to be executed last September. The U.S. military has been sending submarines and aircraft carrier fleets to this area since last September to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from strengthening its “deep sea fortress”. Beijing‘s foreign media published an article titled “Undersea Hunting: China’s Land, Sea, and Air Warfare Forces Surround U.S. and Japanese Submarines” on October 29 last year. This article mentioned that from mid-September to the end of October last year, the sea and airspace southwest of Taiwan became a hotspot of fire as the U.S. and Chinese navies deployed submarines, anti-submarine aircraft and anti-submarine ships to conduct an anti-submarine offensive and defense in this area for nearly a month. The author notes that the same offensive began again in January this year, and until the deadline for this article, Chinese Communist Party anti-submarine aircraft conducted underwater reconnaissance in the waters southwest of Taiwan almost every day, most recently twice on March 3.
Meanwhile, the CCP has been using oceanographic research vessels to release underwater unmanned aerial vehicles to repeatedly probe hydrographic data in the Java Sea since last year in order to map out underwater shipping lanes for submarine strikes. Since last year, Indonesia has retrieved three unmanned underwater vehicles marked in Chinese, and their retrieval sites are getting closer to Australia. At the same time, the Chinese Communist Party has begun to buy Papua New Guinea, first spending more than a billion dollars to build a naval base on the pretext of building a “fishing port” on the small, desolate and sparsely populated island of Daru, which is closest to Australia. Ltd.” as a trustee, is prepared to spend $26 billion on a long-term lease of Daru Island, with the goal of building a city. It seems that this planned naval city will be an important part of the Chinese Communist Party’s Indo-Pacific strategy, a “bridgehead” into the South Pacific. The plan came to light after Australian journalists saw a letter from the “company” to the Papua New Guinea government to that effect.
Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst of defense strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, judged that “China would send submarines farther out than the South China Sea or the East China Sea – beyond the ‘first island chain ‘ or to Australia in a way that would allow the PLA Navy to gather intelligence and support covert operations or warfare.” Timothy Heath, a security expert at the Rand Corporation, a U.S. think tank, expressed similar views. He believes that China wants to improve the ability of its submarines to operate in these waters as part of an effort to expand their operational reach.
The Cold War was initiated by a series of military threats by the Chinese Communist Party, which decided that the U.S. and China were now “strong in the east and weak in the west” and therefore stubbornly pursued its aggressive Indo-Pacific strategy. The U.S. defense strategy is currently defensive, with the first island chain being the main defense against the CCP’s strategic nuclear submarines, and its navy is expanding its military preparations to deal with the CCP’s military threats. The military dynamics between the two sides in this region deserve constant attention.
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