China: Our navy must be the most powerful in Asia
Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:30 am
China is today the most powerful nation in Asia: it has the biggest ground forces in the world at 1.7 million active personnel, the largest airforce in the continent with over 2,500 aircrafts, and the Asian state with the most devastating strategic missile force - a nuclear arsenal size estimated from between 240 nuclear weapons to as many as 3,000 warheads. In term of military expenditure, China spends US$166 billion every year, an amount equivalent to what the next 6 highest Asian spenders (Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Pakistan) put in altogether.
China now has Asia's biggest ground and air forces, want the same for navy
China however, trailed behind in the seas. To be sure, no other Asian state could mount an effective challenge against the Chinese navy, who is currently as large as the next 3 Asian navies (Japanese maritime self-defense force, South Korean navy and the Indian navy) combined in tonnage, but still the People Liberation Navy isn't the most powerful naval fleet in Asia. That honor goes to the U.S. Pacific Fleet, whom China views as its top maritime competitor, an obstructive force that has long been checking the Chinese ambitions in East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific.
But this is about to change. China is rapidly expanding its naval force, aimed largely at countering the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Two months ago, a U.S. congressional advisory panel sounded warning on China's military buildup, predicting Beijing's vast naval modernization programs could mean the country may possess the largest navy in Asia by 2020, altering the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region and challenging decades of U.S. maritime pre-eminence in Western Pacific. The U.S. then, would need to station 60% of its total warships in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020, compared with about 50% at the moment.
China's first and second island chain, the U.S. is the only obstacle to such Chinese naval ambition
American allies are worried. Senior Japanese military official Lieutenant General Noboru Yamaguchi told the Lowy Institute last year that the Chinese navy has recently surpassed the Russian navy to be the second largest naval force in the world, though the U.S. Navy remains unrivaled in seas. Without American naval presence, China could tackle the entire Eastern Asian maritime force all by itself alone, which include the navies of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the 10 ASEAN states. As of 2013, China's submarine fleet is also reportedly the world's second-largest, with as much subs as Japan, India, Taiwan, South Korea and the ASEAN states combined.
China President Xi Jinping has thrown his personal weight behind the maritime strategy. In a speech to the Politburo, Xi said the oceans would play an increasingly important role this century in China's economic development. "We love peace and will remain on a path of peaceful development but that doesn't mean giving up our rights, especially involving the nation's core interests," he was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. China has since been making waves in the South China Sea, where it has territorial disputes with a number of littoral states, and also the East China Sea, where Chinese warships are a now a permanent presence near or passing through the Japanese islands.
China President wants a strong navy to establish the country as 'true global superpower'
The ideological keel of Beijing's modern bid to become a maritime power was laid down as the strength of China's economy flowed through into sharply increased military budgets. China believes it should be entitled to a rightful place in the seas after centuries of trauma from European and Japanese colonization. "The Qing Dynasty was badly defeated in naval warfare by overseas imperialist powers, leading to the decline and fall of the dynasty," wrote Zhang Wenmu, a professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Ni Lexiong, a professor at Shanghai's University of Political Science and Law, documented how China's failure to properly fund its navy was a factor in its 1895 defeat in the first Sino-Japanese war and the subsequent loss of Taiwan. "A truly powerful nation must have thriving international trade, a merchant fleet to carry these goods and a strong navy to protect its sea lanes." The rise of earlier seafaring and trading powers - Portugal, Spain, Holland, Great Britain, the United States and Japan stemmed from the strength of their naval power. China's Ming dynasty once had the world's largest naval fleet, but at some point in history turned isolationist, paving way to the decline of Chinese maritime power in global stage.
Analysts warn that without the Americans, the Chinese military is now strong enough to take on all these nations alone
China last year overtook the United States as the world's biggest trading nation, according to official data from both countries. Up to 90% of Chinese trade is carried out by sea, including most of its vital imports of energy and raw materials, shipping experts estimate. Beijing's strategists fear the U.S. could interrupt this trade at a time of crisis or conflict. The Chinese military used to focus on its massive ground forces, but now that the eastern seaboard is the throbbing engine of the world's second-largest economy, fighting a war inside China would be catastrophic, win or lose. It is far better to meet challenges at sea or take the battle into the territory of a hostile nation.
As a result, military competition between the the U.S. and China is on the rise, with China's defense budget more than doubling since 2006. The country has developed drones, stealth fighters and an aircraft carrier while deploying a type of anti-ship ballistic missile the U.S. says is meant to threaten its carriers in the region. It is a repetition of the early 20th century, when Britain and Germany engaged in a deadly naval race that led to World War I. At that time, the Imperial German Navy was second only to the (British) Royal Navy, and the German Empire desired "a rightful place in the sun" and a strong navy to protect its ever-increasing maritime trade. By this time, Germany had surpassed Britain as Europe's biggest economy.
Historians see similarities to the British-German naval race in the 1900s
Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, an American naval officer back in 1887, emphasized on naval supremacy. His argument was that every nation that had ruled the waves, from Rome to Great Britain, had prospered and thrived, while those that lacked naval supremacy, such as Hannibal's Carthage or Napoleon's France, had not. He hypothesized that what Britain had done in building a navy to control the world's sea lanes, others could also do, if they were to keep up with the race for wealth and empire in the future. German Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted a Navy which shall be larger and stronger than the British navy. In 1898 came the first German Fleet Act, which in another decade propelled Germany from a naval ranking lower than Austria to having the second largest naval fleet in the world.
In 1920, the Imperial Japanese Navy became the third largest navy in the world, behind the Royal Navy and the United States Navy. Regionally in Asia however, it was the U.S. Navy, not the Royal navy, that posed the greatest threat to the Japanese. Since the 1930s, Japan began to structure itself specifically to fight the United States. Prior to the outbreak of World War 2, the Japanese navy was of the size of 35,000 standard ton displacement, half the U.S. Navy 70,000. It resembled a similarity to the German empire back in 1914, when the British Navy was 2 times bigger than the German navy.
The Chinese navy is undergoing the most rapid build-up in the world
In 1939, the Japanese was bogged down by the war in China. The military originally predicted that China would be conquered in just 3 months, but the Chinese put up an all-out resistance which exhausted Japan's resources and supplies. Japan, like Britain, was almost entirely dependent on foreign resources to supply its economy. At this time the U.S., Britain and other Western powers had placed an embargo on Japan over its expansionist policies. To secure and protect distant sources of raw material (especially Southeast Asian oil and raw materials), controlled by foreign countries (Britain, France, and the Netherlands), Japan drafted up plan to attack Pearl Harbor, which would allow it to gain naval supremacy in Asia-Pacific and enable it a free hand in the region.
The destruction of the fleets in Pearl Harbor led to a temporal superiority over the U.S. navy. In 1941, the standard ton displacement of the Japanese navy was 180,000 - compared to the U.S. 130,000. With that, Japan immediately proceed to sink British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse in Malaya. Britain's Prime Minster Winston Churchill, after the incidents, said, "in all the war, I never received a more direct shock... As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor, who were hastening back to California. Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked."
The Japanese navy was for a while, stronger than the U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor, but lost to American manufacturing prowess
China has not reached the historical level of the Imperial German and Japanese navies, however. The U.S. Navy is currently around 4-5 times bigger than its Chinese counterparts. The Asian giant though, has something to make up for it. While Japan and Germany eventually lost to the vast American manufacturing power, China eclipsed the United States to be the world's largest manufacturing nation in 2010 and the disparity is widening over the years.
Latest news report revealed that China is building its second aircraft carrier, which is expected to take six years, with the country aiming to have at least four such ships, Chinese and Hong Kong media said on Sunday. After two decades of double-digit increases in the military budget, China's admirals are finally pushing forward to develop a full blue-water navy capable of defending growing economic interests as well as disputed territory in the South and East China Seas. The country's first aircraft carrier Liaoning - a Soviet-era ship bought from Ukraine in 1998 and re-fitted in a Chinese shipyard - has long been a symbol of China's naval build-up.
American poster warning against naval spending cut, citing China as a top threat
16 years after it bought the Soviet carrier, China now possess the technical expertise to build its own aircraft carrier. The size of the carrier, 110,000-ton, will be huge enough to rival the biggest in United States Navy. Early this month, a Japanese newspaper said China was overhauling its military structure in order to strengthen its attack capability and secure air and naval superiority in the South China and East China seas. The Liaoning carrier conducted its maiden mission in the South China Sea in January. It followed an incident in December in which a US warship was forced to avoid a collision with a Chinese naval vessel, prompting Washington to accuse China of being the aggressor.
It is of no secret that China is aiming to have a naval force bigger than the U.S. Pacific Fleet by 2020 or sooner. The country now has the world's second largest navy, and is pushing for a closer parity with the United States. Speaking to state media, Ma Gang, a professor at the People's Liberation Army National Defense University, said: "China should have a military that can match its power status (of a great power). The Chinese military has expanded its sphere of activity, aiming to extend its naval and air forces farther from the coast and into international waters."
China: We will return to the glorious period like during the Ming dynasty
In Tokyo, Japan says China's growing maritime power has emerged as the biggest challenge to the Japanese military since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Japan this year reversed a decade of declining military outlays and instead boosted its spending by 0.8% to 4.9 trillion yen (US$48 billion). Japanese military analysts believe their navy still holds a clear advantage in technology and firepower over its Chinese rival but the gap is closing. Security experts estimate that it will take China about 15 years to match the Japanese and U.S. naval technologies if Beijing can maintain its double digit annual increases in military spending.
And time is tickling, the Chinese navy is the world's fastest-growing naval force in 2013, commissioning 2 missile destroyers, 3 missile frigates, 9 light missile frigates, 2 large auxiliary ships, 4 conventional submarines, 2 supporting warships for submarines, 1 nuclear submarine, 2 double-hull survey vessels, 1 warship for testing underwater sound equipment and 2 minesweepers. It will again be the fastest-growing this year, and will begin to build its first Type 001A homegrown aircraft carrier and large high-speed combat support warship, improved Type 039B submarine, improved Type 081 minesweeper, improved Type 071 landing platform dock, new-type medium-sized landing ship, Type 055 large missile destroyer, and Type 057 missile frigate.
China is expected to have the world's largest submarine fleet in 2 years, just like Germany had during World War 2
The U.S. accused the rapid expansion of China's navy as an aggressive act. According to a congressional study, Beijing is by no means simply trying to protect its trade routes and its citizens abroad but, rather, is determined to assert its territorial claims, push back the US' influence in the Pacific and underline its status as a global military power. China rejected the accusation. "It seems to me the West is simply faint-hearted," says Xu Guangyu, 78, a retired People's Liberation Army general and current senior analyst with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. China, he says, wants to "build up a navy that is strong enough to keep an adversary from attacking, strong enough to defend itself and strong enough to strike back."
Xu also explained that the biggest competitor to the U.S. Navy is Russia not China. He rejects report that China is now the second largest navy. "When it comes to ships and equipment, though, we rank third, behind the U.S. and Russia." The retired general however, said that personnel ratio between China's army and navy is 7 to 1.5, while the desired ratio should be 5 to 2.5. If that desired ratio were indeed established, China would field the world's largest navy.
Thanks to mevotex of miricom.
Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:30 am
China is today the most powerful nation in Asia: it has the biggest ground forces in the world at 1.7 million active personnel, the largest airforce in the continent with over 2,500 aircrafts, and the Asian state with the most devastating strategic missile force - a nuclear arsenal size estimated from between 240 nuclear weapons to as many as 3,000 warheads. In term of military expenditure, China spends US$166 billion every year, an amount equivalent to what the next 6 highest Asian spenders (Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Pakistan) put in altogether.
China now has Asia's biggest ground and air forces, want the same for navy
China however, trailed behind in the seas. To be sure, no other Asian state could mount an effective challenge against the Chinese navy, who is currently as large as the next 3 Asian navies (Japanese maritime self-defense force, South Korean navy and the Indian navy) combined in tonnage, but still the People Liberation Navy isn't the most powerful naval fleet in Asia. That honor goes to the U.S. Pacific Fleet, whom China views as its top maritime competitor, an obstructive force that has long been checking the Chinese ambitions in East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific.
But this is about to change. China is rapidly expanding its naval force, aimed largely at countering the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Two months ago, a U.S. congressional advisory panel sounded warning on China's military buildup, predicting Beijing's vast naval modernization programs could mean the country may possess the largest navy in Asia by 2020, altering the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region and challenging decades of U.S. maritime pre-eminence in Western Pacific. The U.S. then, would need to station 60% of its total warships in the Asia-Pacific region by 2020, compared with about 50% at the moment.
China's first and second island chain, the U.S. is the only obstacle to such Chinese naval ambition
American allies are worried. Senior Japanese military official Lieutenant General Noboru Yamaguchi told the Lowy Institute last year that the Chinese navy has recently surpassed the Russian navy to be the second largest naval force in the world, though the U.S. Navy remains unrivaled in seas. Without American naval presence, China could tackle the entire Eastern Asian maritime force all by itself alone, which include the navies of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the 10 ASEAN states. As of 2013, China's submarine fleet is also reportedly the world's second-largest, with as much subs as Japan, India, Taiwan, South Korea and the ASEAN states combined.
China President Xi Jinping has thrown his personal weight behind the maritime strategy. In a speech to the Politburo, Xi said the oceans would play an increasingly important role this century in China's economic development. "We love peace and will remain on a path of peaceful development but that doesn't mean giving up our rights, especially involving the nation's core interests," he was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency. China has since been making waves in the South China Sea, where it has territorial disputes with a number of littoral states, and also the East China Sea, where Chinese warships are a now a permanent presence near or passing through the Japanese islands.
China President wants a strong navy to establish the country as 'true global superpower'
The ideological keel of Beijing's modern bid to become a maritime power was laid down as the strength of China's economy flowed through into sharply increased military budgets. China believes it should be entitled to a rightful place in the seas after centuries of trauma from European and Japanese colonization. "The Qing Dynasty was badly defeated in naval warfare by overseas imperialist powers, leading to the decline and fall of the dynasty," wrote Zhang Wenmu, a professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Ni Lexiong, a professor at Shanghai's University of Political Science and Law, documented how China's failure to properly fund its navy was a factor in its 1895 defeat in the first Sino-Japanese war and the subsequent loss of Taiwan. "A truly powerful nation must have thriving international trade, a merchant fleet to carry these goods and a strong navy to protect its sea lanes." The rise of earlier seafaring and trading powers - Portugal, Spain, Holland, Great Britain, the United States and Japan stemmed from the strength of their naval power. China's Ming dynasty once had the world's largest naval fleet, but at some point in history turned isolationist, paving way to the decline of Chinese maritime power in global stage.
Analysts warn that without the Americans, the Chinese military is now strong enough to take on all these nations alone
China last year overtook the United States as the world's biggest trading nation, according to official data from both countries. Up to 90% of Chinese trade is carried out by sea, including most of its vital imports of energy and raw materials, shipping experts estimate. Beijing's strategists fear the U.S. could interrupt this trade at a time of crisis or conflict. The Chinese military used to focus on its massive ground forces, but now that the eastern seaboard is the throbbing engine of the world's second-largest economy, fighting a war inside China would be catastrophic, win or lose. It is far better to meet challenges at sea or take the battle into the territory of a hostile nation.
As a result, military competition between the the U.S. and China is on the rise, with China's defense budget more than doubling since 2006. The country has developed drones, stealth fighters and an aircraft carrier while deploying a type of anti-ship ballistic missile the U.S. says is meant to threaten its carriers in the region. It is a repetition of the early 20th century, when Britain and Germany engaged in a deadly naval race that led to World War I. At that time, the Imperial German Navy was second only to the (British) Royal Navy, and the German Empire desired "a rightful place in the sun" and a strong navy to protect its ever-increasing maritime trade. By this time, Germany had surpassed Britain as Europe's biggest economy.
Historians see similarities to the British-German naval race in the 1900s
Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, an American naval officer back in 1887, emphasized on naval supremacy. His argument was that every nation that had ruled the waves, from Rome to Great Britain, had prospered and thrived, while those that lacked naval supremacy, such as Hannibal's Carthage or Napoleon's France, had not. He hypothesized that what Britain had done in building a navy to control the world's sea lanes, others could also do, if they were to keep up with the race for wealth and empire in the future. German Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted a Navy which shall be larger and stronger than the British navy. In 1898 came the first German Fleet Act, which in another decade propelled Germany from a naval ranking lower than Austria to having the second largest naval fleet in the world.
In 1920, the Imperial Japanese Navy became the third largest navy in the world, behind the Royal Navy and the United States Navy. Regionally in Asia however, it was the U.S. Navy, not the Royal navy, that posed the greatest threat to the Japanese. Since the 1930s, Japan began to structure itself specifically to fight the United States. Prior to the outbreak of World War 2, the Japanese navy was of the size of 35,000 standard ton displacement, half the U.S. Navy 70,000. It resembled a similarity to the German empire back in 1914, when the British Navy was 2 times bigger than the German navy.
The Chinese navy is undergoing the most rapid build-up in the world
In 1939, the Japanese was bogged down by the war in China. The military originally predicted that China would be conquered in just 3 months, but the Chinese put up an all-out resistance which exhausted Japan's resources and supplies. Japan, like Britain, was almost entirely dependent on foreign resources to supply its economy. At this time the U.S., Britain and other Western powers had placed an embargo on Japan over its expansionist policies. To secure and protect distant sources of raw material (especially Southeast Asian oil and raw materials), controlled by foreign countries (Britain, France, and the Netherlands), Japan drafted up plan to attack Pearl Harbor, which would allow it to gain naval supremacy in Asia-Pacific and enable it a free hand in the region.
The destruction of the fleets in Pearl Harbor led to a temporal superiority over the U.S. navy. In 1941, the standard ton displacement of the Japanese navy was 180,000 - compared to the U.S. 130,000. With that, Japan immediately proceed to sink British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse in Malaya. Britain's Prime Minster Winston Churchill, after the incidents, said, "in all the war, I never received a more direct shock... As I turned over and twisted in bed the full horror of the news sank in upon me. There were no British or American ships in the Indian Ocean or the Pacific except the American survivors of Pearl Harbor, who were hastening back to California. Over all this vast expanse of waters Japan was supreme, and we everywhere were weak and naked."
The Japanese navy was for a while, stronger than the U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor, but lost to American manufacturing prowess
China has not reached the historical level of the Imperial German and Japanese navies, however. The U.S. Navy is currently around 4-5 times bigger than its Chinese counterparts. The Asian giant though, has something to make up for it. While Japan and Germany eventually lost to the vast American manufacturing power, China eclipsed the United States to be the world's largest manufacturing nation in 2010 and the disparity is widening over the years.
Latest news report revealed that China is building its second aircraft carrier, which is expected to take six years, with the country aiming to have at least four such ships, Chinese and Hong Kong media said on Sunday. After two decades of double-digit increases in the military budget, China's admirals are finally pushing forward to develop a full blue-water navy capable of defending growing economic interests as well as disputed territory in the South and East China Seas. The country's first aircraft carrier Liaoning - a Soviet-era ship bought from Ukraine in 1998 and re-fitted in a Chinese shipyard - has long been a symbol of China's naval build-up.
American poster warning against naval spending cut, citing China as a top threat
16 years after it bought the Soviet carrier, China now possess the technical expertise to build its own aircraft carrier. The size of the carrier, 110,000-ton, will be huge enough to rival the biggest in United States Navy. Early this month, a Japanese newspaper said China was overhauling its military structure in order to strengthen its attack capability and secure air and naval superiority in the South China and East China seas. The Liaoning carrier conducted its maiden mission in the South China Sea in January. It followed an incident in December in which a US warship was forced to avoid a collision with a Chinese naval vessel, prompting Washington to accuse China of being the aggressor.
It is of no secret that China is aiming to have a naval force bigger than the U.S. Pacific Fleet by 2020 or sooner. The country now has the world's second largest navy, and is pushing for a closer parity with the United States. Speaking to state media, Ma Gang, a professor at the People's Liberation Army National Defense University, said: "China should have a military that can match its power status (of a great power). The Chinese military has expanded its sphere of activity, aiming to extend its naval and air forces farther from the coast and into international waters."
China: We will return to the glorious period like during the Ming dynasty
In Tokyo, Japan says China's growing maritime power has emerged as the biggest challenge to the Japanese military since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Japan this year reversed a decade of declining military outlays and instead boosted its spending by 0.8% to 4.9 trillion yen (US$48 billion). Japanese military analysts believe their navy still holds a clear advantage in technology and firepower over its Chinese rival but the gap is closing. Security experts estimate that it will take China about 15 years to match the Japanese and U.S. naval technologies if Beijing can maintain its double digit annual increases in military spending.
And time is tickling, the Chinese navy is the world's fastest-growing naval force in 2013, commissioning 2 missile destroyers, 3 missile frigates, 9 light missile frigates, 2 large auxiliary ships, 4 conventional submarines, 2 supporting warships for submarines, 1 nuclear submarine, 2 double-hull survey vessels, 1 warship for testing underwater sound equipment and 2 minesweepers. It will again be the fastest-growing this year, and will begin to build its first Type 001A homegrown aircraft carrier and large high-speed combat support warship, improved Type 039B submarine, improved Type 081 minesweeper, improved Type 071 landing platform dock, new-type medium-sized landing ship, Type 055 large missile destroyer, and Type 057 missile frigate.
China is expected to have the world's largest submarine fleet in 2 years, just like Germany had during World War 2
The U.S. accused the rapid expansion of China's navy as an aggressive act. According to a congressional study, Beijing is by no means simply trying to protect its trade routes and its citizens abroad but, rather, is determined to assert its territorial claims, push back the US' influence in the Pacific and underline its status as a global military power. China rejected the accusation. "It seems to me the West is simply faint-hearted," says Xu Guangyu, 78, a retired People's Liberation Army general and current senior analyst with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association. China, he says, wants to "build up a navy that is strong enough to keep an adversary from attacking, strong enough to defend itself and strong enough to strike back."
Xu also explained that the biggest competitor to the U.S. Navy is Russia not China. He rejects report that China is now the second largest navy. "When it comes to ships and equipment, though, we rank third, behind the U.S. and Russia." The retired general however, said that personnel ratio between China's army and navy is 7 to 1.5, while the desired ratio should be 5 to 2.5. If that desired ratio were indeed established, China would field the world's largest navy.
Thanks to mevotex of miricom.
