Many have coined the 21st century as the century of the Pacific or a century in which events in and along the Pacific Ocean will shape world affairs. Furthering this idea, the Department of Defense announced that by 2020 60 percent of the U.S. Navy will be positioned in the Pacific Command’s area of responsibility. Simultaneously, the naval modernization efforts of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its increasingly aggressive approach to maritime territorial disputes draw concern from the United States.
As a result, many analysts and academics alike have committed a great deal of thought to the subject of China’s increasing naval strength and the possible concomitant of territorial expansion. Hitherto, the current literature on the subject of China’s naval growth is somewhat limited, since much of it tries to contextualize the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in theoretical terms: Is the PLAN following a Corbett or Mahan path? As naval classics, the works of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Corbett still teach us much about naval strategy, but to construct an argument with only one or the other as a possible conclusion is to be narrow yet also abstract. After all, painting with such broad strokes allows anyone to see whatever they want.
Therefore, it would be better, if not more practical, to juxtapose the PRC’s modernization of the PLAN to that of another nation: late 19th-century France under Minister of Marine Théophile Aube, who similarly modernized his nation’s navy with ambition and practicality but also with revolutionary ingenuity that was being advocated by the strategic naval doctrines of the Jeune École (“Young School”). An examination of the French navy under the influences of the Jeune École during the Third Republic can offer insight into the current development of the PLAN.
‘Naval Traditions . . . Cursory at Best’
Today, the Chinese would say that, along with their long history of recorded civilization, they also have a long history of being a seafaring nation. They would further argue that because of their alleged sense of naval traditions, they are therefore destined to develop a modern blue-water navy, especially since all “great world powers,” again as they understand it, possess great navies. Truth be told, though, China’s last example of a serious pursuit toward sea power was Zheng He’s great “Treasure Fleet” during the 15th century. Despite the fleet’s one grand expedition, the successors of Ming Dynasty Emperor Yongle moored the fleet in favor of concentrating resources on securing China’s frontiers. Not until 1987, when the commander of the PLAN, Admiral Liu Huaqing, argued before the members of the PLA General Headquarters that China could not conduct war at sea without air cover, did China begin to develop a modern navy and a coherent strategy to guide it.1
In short, Admiral Liu used this argument to rationalize the development and acquisition of assets needed for a carrier-based fleet, since an aircraft carrier could allow China to project air power as a means to complement a more powerful navy. Be that as it may, given China’s 500-year naval hiatus, its naval traditions are cursory at best. Furthermore, due to the PLAN’s inchoate plan and the inherent time required to develop a carrier-based navy, China has supplemented its shortcomings by using what abilities it does have and devising an access-denial strategy along its adjacent seas, especially in the South China Sea.
France’s Third Republic underwent a similar transformation. Contextually, the Jeune École set nearly the exact same historical precedent over a hundred years ago during the late 19th century by achieving, or attempting to achieve, national goals from an ad hoc strategic shift in naval doctrine. France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had an equally inept navy due at least in part to its internal divisions; it was, as Theodore Ropp described it, a navy of “three castes.”2 In addition to organizational problems that more or less functionally paralyzed it, the navy of the Third Republic before the ascension of Aube also lacked a naval strategy that reflected France’s capabilities or, perhaps more accurately, one that exploited France’s enemies’ weaknesses. It was within this context that Aube’s Jeune École attempted to overcome the French navy’s tactical disadvantages with strategic ingenuity. The Jeune École devised and Aube articulated a naval strategy of having fewer battleships and more maneuverable vessels, such as cruisers, particularly along the north of France, and torpedo boats that could engage in a menacing style of naval warfare that proponents called commerce warfare.
A Thing for Carriers
To fully understand China’s current naval procurements, one has to recognize the relationship between the country’s historical experiences and their influence on its foreign policy. China’s defeat during the Opium Wars of the 1840s and the resulting exploitation of the country by foreigners, principally by Western nations and Japan, molded China’s modern world view. The period of time between the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, which ended the First Opium War, to the Communist Revolution of 1949 is known by the Chinese as the “Century of Humiliation” due to the “series of treaties that humiliated the nation and forfeited its sovereignty.”3
Even though those events have long since passed, they still inform China’s perception of itself and its policy toward the outside world. It is irrelevant as to whether the period of 1840–1949 was or was not actually a century in which China was exploited and therefore humiliated, but it is important to understand that this is how the Chinese interpret history and use it to rationalize their actions—such as developing a more capable navy. For instance, Admiral Liu argued that the Qing Dynasty lost against the Japanese in the 1895 Sino-Japanese War because of China’s “blindness to theoretical principles of sea power.” Never mind, though, as Michael Crisp observed, the “material disparity” between China and Japan at the time.”4 In other words, China’s failure to defend itself was not due to its lack of a navy but because of its lack of development from centuries of self-imposed isolation.
As Beijing sees it, China needs a blue-water navy to become a serious cog in the wheel of the international system, and a blue-water navy to China means a carrier-based navy. This idea proliferates from the top tiers of China’s Communist Party to the public at large; a December 2006 China Central Television documentary titled “The Rise of the Great Powers” offers a glimpse of understanding the popularity of building a strong (and again, carrier-based) navy among the people.5 In addition to the obvious power-projection capabilities of carriers, they can also, as outlined by Former PRC President Hu Jintao’s 2004 “New Historic Missions” statement, greatly contribute to non-military humitarian-assistance/disaster-relief (HA/DR) operations. A perfect example of this would be the United States’ HA/DR mission during the 2004 tsunami that devastated Indonesia. It underscored a Chinese belief that it was “‘humiliating’ that the navies of not only the United States but also of India and Japan can sail the South China Sea, while China’s navy lacks such a capability.”6
The U.S. Navy is implicitly China’s main maritime rival. However, as strongly as the Chinese may feel about developing a navy that can, at the most, function outside of China’s littorals to protect its overseas interests or, at the very least, counter the U.S. Navy within China’s regional waters, it is not feasible within the near term. Practically speaking, a ship-for-ship type of competition, particularly in aircraft carrier development, against the United States would be futile. PLA officers acknowledge this too by admitting that if they were to use their new aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, against the U.S. Navy they would make themselves “easy targets.”7 After all, the United States has had a carrier-based navy since World War II and has been perfecting it ever since.
French David, British Goliath
Similarly, a ship-for-ship type of competition was one that the French Third Republic of the late 19th century knew it couldn’t compete in against the British. The Royal Navy had such a quantitative lead over the French at the time that trying to beat John Bull at his own game would have only been a complete waste of treasure for the French. One of the first to express this idea was French Captain Richild Grivel. In his 1869 book De la Guerre Maritime Avant et Depuis Les Nouvelles Inventions, he claimed that France’s historical experiences in naval warfare showed that fleet battles were very costly to weaker naval powers, such as France, against superior naval powers, such as Great Britain.8 And it was Aube who, as Minister of Marine from January 1886 to May 1887, expanded on Grivel’s observations and attempted to translate them into a working naval strategy. Aube at the time, and later echoed by followers of the Jeune École, believed that the French navy had but one function—protect France’s colonies from Britain.9 Be that as it may, open fleet battles with the Royal Navy were not what Aube nor what the Jeune École were advocating for, even though Britain was considered a rival nation:
. . . should not fleet warfare, or the warfare of the big battalions . . . be resolutely avoided as ruinous for the nation that is less rich in sailors and ships as well in the means of renewing them? . . . a maritime population at least four times [that of France], with its lead factories and material resources, England can spend on her navy a budget that is at least twice of what is spent on the French fleet.10
Over a century later, the Chinese have more or less argued the same point that an attempt to match or exceed another’s well-established and superior naval capabilities would be a dangerous waste of resources. To paraphrase one Chinese academic, an aircraft carrier program like that of the United States would serve as a “black hole” and that China “could better use its resources.”11 With China essentially starting from scratch, such an endeavor would be futile considering the United States’ quantitative and qualitative edge. Again, this is very similar to the French Third Republic’s naval dilemma.
Recognizing that dilemma, Aube offered a creative, not to mention radical, change to France’s naval strategy. One particular problem that he and the Jeune École cited was France’s use of ironclads. As fellow Jeune École founder Gabriel Charms put it, “The principal vice of ironclads is the attempt to combine in them at one time all the means of naval warfare: the ram, the gun, and the torpedo. The result is that they are not really suited to use any of them.”12
A ship that has everything would not only be expensive but also be large in order to facilitate all of the above-mentioned armaments. Moreover, a large ship is an easy target, which is contrary to what an already inferior navy wants to be if it is to maximize what advantages it does have. Some Chinese officials and academics recognize the inherent problem with capital ships when they characterize their production and use as both a “black hole” and “suicidal,” respectively.13
As one might expect, the parallels between late 19th-century France’s and early 21st-century China’s strategic naval dilemmas can also be seen in their respective solutions. Notwithstanding France’s inferior navy, both qualitatively and quantitatively compared to the Royal Navy, Aube advocated for a radically different marine de guerre. His new kind of war, and the navy he thought most appropriate to deliver it, was one that theoretically employed the threat of force against a superior naval power’s natural weakness—its trade. By 1890, Great Britain had more registered tonnage than the rest of the world combined. To fully protect such a vast network of shipping lanes and the vessels that sailed on them was next to impossible. Being keenly aware of this, Aube devised a strategy that targeted British commerce; he called it commercial warfare. The object of Aube’s plan in the event of war was not to destroy British commerce and the Royal Navy’s overall command of the sea, but instead to pose a threat with torpedo boats “not to starve out the enemy but on inducing the paralysis of British trade and economic life . . . [to] produce an economic panic that would bring about social collapse.”14
It should be noted that while the idea of waging commerce warfare with torpedo boats was the principal strategy of the Jeune École, it was not the driving force of the entire navy, despite Aube’s enthusiasm. Aube essentially trifurcated the navy: an entire battle fleet at Toulon as an offensive posture against Italy, torpedo boats and older coastal-defense ships at Cherbourg in the English Channel to hedge against a possible German invasion, and, in fulfillment of the commercial-warfare concept, cruisers out of Brest to target British trade in the Atlantic.15 Ironically, when Aube arranged the navy as he did, in order to focus appropriate naval assets around threats, he probably only intensified confusion within the French navy.
From Torpedo Boats to Lurking Subs
China’s solution to its naval situation is strikingly similar to France’s back then. The Chinese have concluded that to continue to prosper they need a more capable navy that not only protects China but also its vital sea-lanes. China is, now and for the immediate future, an export-based economy, which means its sea-lanes are its economic lifelines. That rationale alone makes China’s naval-modernization efforts understandable, but it also brings China into conflict with a U.S. Navy that, for better or for worse, has dominated the world’s oceans for more than half a century. Further considering the geopolitics of the Western Pacific rim and many of those countries’ military relationships with the United States, China is uneasy about entrusting the United States to never use “China’s” sea-lanes to manipulate it.16
As mentioned before, though, directly challenging the U.S. Navy would be suicidal. Therefore, per the historical precedent that the Jeune École set against the Royal Navy, the PLAN has conceived a similar strategy: anti-access/area denial (A2/AD).17 As the PRC looks out beyond its eastern seaboard, it perceives the local geography in terms of layers. The first and most important, the First Island Chain, roughly constitutes the territories and seas stretching down from Korean Peninsula to the South China Sea.18 From one perspective, these island chains and shallow seas can be interpreted as geographic shackles that constrain the PLAN from projecting outward. However, from an A2/AD perspective these very same shackles could be used as a tactical advantage.
Relatively shallow seas and channels such as those that make up the First Island Chain are not necessarily conducive for fleets or a large vessel like a carrier but are instead arguably better suited for other platforms such as submarines, which can exploit those shallow waters and channels by lurking below the surface. This is essentially the same gambit as that which the Jeune École intended to employ against the British with maneuverable and low-lying torpedo boats.
Hence, the PLAN’s focus on its submarine fleet is to be expected. The PRC has purchased a total of 12 Kilo-class submarines, 10 of which are of the advanced Project 636 model, from Russia. Aside from purchasing technology outright, China also has indigenously developed what it designates as the Song-class submarine, which has been characterized as the “rough equivalent of a 1980s Western diesel submarine.” That actually dovetails nicely with an A2/AD strategy, since a diesel submarine is fairly quiet when running on batteries. Her endurance is short, but that is of little consequence since China’s interests lie within the nearby waters of the First Island Chain. Also, as of 2004 the PLAN added the Yuan-class submarine, which has been described as a “Kilo with Chinese characteristics [or a] Song with Russian characteristics.”19 Here is an example of the PLAN finding its naval niche—platforms that are capable of deterring another’s supremacy but falling short of projecting power afar.
In addition to the PLAN’s submarine fleet, the PRC is furthering its strategy within the First Island Chain by creating networks of seabed sonar as a means of increasing situational awareness within waters the Chinese deem as their own.20 Also, the PLA’s Second Artillery Corps has extended its reach out into the South China Sea by adding medium-range antiship ballistic missiles, such as the DF-21D, to the arsenal.21 These platforms are insufficient to win a war or possibly even an engagement with the U.S. Navy, but they are sufficient to deny another’s supremacy. Similarly, it was the Jeune École’s strategy to not directly challenge the Royal Navy but instead to counter that superior fleet with less conventional tactics and comparatively inferior means by denying them complete freedom of the seas.
As for Theophile Aube’s overall success, the validity of the Jeune École’s naval thesis or the true effectiveness of torpedo boats and the dispersed fleet they were meant to support should not predispose us to any conclusion about the PLAN’s modernization efforts. But comparing the PLAN’s efforts to those of the French Third Republic’s navy during the late 19th century can provide context to what might otherwise appear to be a murky and indecisive naval strategy of China’s. The conversation about the trajectory of the PLAN should not just be limited to the theoretical scope that Mahan and Corbett offer. A comparative analysis of China’s navy and the Third Republic’s navy, which also attempted to overcome its shortcomings by trying to more efficiently exercise the resources it did have as opposed to ones it lacked, offers an insightful way of gleaning the development and future course of the PLAN. Nevertheless, China’s maritime transformation is far from over, and it remains to be seen if the Chinese will continue to “push” themselves toward the sea or focus instead on the continent, as they did for centuries.
1. Robert S. Ross, “China’s Naval Nationalism,” International Security, vol. 34, no. 2 (Fall 2009), 56, 60.
2. Theodore Ropp, The Development of a Modern Navy: French Naval Policy, 1871–1904 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987), 155.
3. Michael McDevitt and Frederic Vellucci, “Two Vectors, One Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 137, no. 4 (April 2011) 31. Ross, “China’s Naval Nationalism,” 67.
4. Michael Crisp, “The Great Chinese Sea Power Debate: A Review Essay,” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 19, no. 63 (January 2010), 202.
5. Ross, “China’s Naval Nationalism,” 62.
6. Michael A. Glosny and Phillip C. Saunders, “Correspondence: Debating China’s Naval Nationalism,” International Security, vol. 35, no. 2 (Fall 2010), 166. Ross, “China’s Naval Nationalism,” 66.
7. Glosny and Saunders, “Correspondence,” 167.
8. Arne Roksund, The Jeune Ecole: The Strategy of the Weak (Boston: Brill, 2007), 1–3.
9. Ropp, Development of a Modern Navy, 155–57.
10. Roksund, Jeune Ecole, 3.
11. Ross, “China’s Naval Nationalism,” 72.
12. Ropp, Development of a Modern Navy, 160.
13. Ross, “China’s Naval Nationalism,” 72. Glosny and Saunders, “Correspondence,” 167.
14. Roksund, Jeune Ecole, 9. Ropp, Development of a Modern Navy, 162, 170.
15. Ropp, Development of a Modern Navy, 171.
16. Yves-Heng Lim, “The Driving Forces behind China’s Naval Modernization,” Comparative Strategy, vol. 30 (2011), 109–110.
17. Ross, “China’s Naval Nationalism,” 54.
18. Michael Crisp, “The Great Chinese Sea Power Debate: A Review Essay,” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 19, no. 63 (January 2010), 204.
19. Yves-Heng Lim, “Driving Forces,” 113.
20. Robert D. Kaplan, “The Geography of Chinese Power,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 89, no. 3 (May/June 2010), 35.
21. Andrew Erickson, Lyle Goldstein, and Carnes Lord, “When Land Powers Look Seaward,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 137, no. 4 (April 2011), 22.