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The Driving Forces behind China's NavalModernizationYves-Heng Lim aa Department of French Studies, Fujen Catholic University Taipei ,TaiwanPublished online: 09 May 2011.

To cite this article: Yves-Heng Lim (2011) The Driving Forces behind China's Naval Modernization,Comparative Strategy, 30:2, 105-120, DOI: 10.1080/01495933.2011.561729

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The Driving Forces behind China’sNaval Modernization

YVES-HENG LIMDepartment of French StudiesFujen Catholic UniversityTaipei, Taiwan

The rapid development of Chinese naval forces over the last decade has provoked muchdebate over where this modernization is headed. Observing the decennial evolution ofChinese naval forces, this article questions assumptions that China’s naval moderniza-tion can be mainly explained by the enduring salience of the Taiwan question or by a“Mahanian” impulse. In the last ten years, China has prioritized the development of itssubmarine fleet and its sea-denial capacity, a choice that can be explained essentiallyby Beijing’s position in the East Asian regional system and the disquieting presence ofan adversarial global power.

Introduction

Among the most salient elements that belie hopes that China could become a satisfiedshareholder in the current world order, the rapid modernization of the People’s LiberationArmy Navy (PLAN) stands out as a particularly disquieting trend. On the bright sideof nontraditional security, China made use of its newlyacquired platforms in a way thatprovoked praise rather than fears as it took part in international operations against piracyin East African waters in 2009.1 However, recurrent incidents such as the intimidatingdispatch of warships to support Chinese claims in the East China Sea against Japan2 or theharassment of a U.S. Navy ocean surveillance ship in the vicinity of Hainan3 continue tocast a threatening shadow over how China intends to use its naval forces in a more or lessdistant future.

There are multiple specific contingencies in which naval forces could serve Beijing’sinterests, but some have attracted more attention than others. More precisely, China’srenewed interest for the development of modern naval forces has been typically linked tothe need for Beijing to have the means of its ambitions to resolve the Taiwan problem,respond to the increasing dependence of China upon its seaborne trade and vulnerablemaritime lines of communications, and turn a more or less extended sea zone into somekind of buffer. In more theoretical words, the causes of Chinese naval modernization havebeen traced to the need to gain command of the sea so as to exploit it for power-projectionpurposes or maritime trade protection,4 as well as to the need to deny command of the seato some potential or actual adversary.

Assessing the relative strength of each of the three driving forces of Chinese navalmodernization, which parallel the three classical dimensions of sea power,5 is made possibleby the particular connection among these dimensions of sea power, and by the fact thatnaval platforms, though somewhat versatile, are more useful to fulfil some tasks rather thanothers.6 By definition, the ability to deny command to one’s adversary is a prerequisite

The author would like to thank Thomas Kane, Ron Huisken, and Corentin Brustlein for very helpfulcomments on earlier drafts of this work.

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Comparative Strategy, 30:105–120, 2011Copyright © 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

0149-5933 print / 1521-0448 onlineDOI: 10.1080/01495933.2011.561729

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for gaining command for one’s self, while the ability to secure command is, as a generalrule, a prerequisite for being able to project forces from the sea onto the land. A veryobvious distinction is thus possible among navies that can fulfil the “minimum” task ofsea denial, those that can gain command of the sea to guarantee the security of their linesof communications, and those that can make of use this command for sea-based powerprojection. In a more dynamic perspective, this implies that navy modernization driven byan urgent need to project power is not likely to be similar to the modernization of a navywhose primary aim is to reinforce its sea-denial capability against a stronger naval power.These differences are, of course, likely to be visible at the doctrinal level, but they are alsolikely to be particularly evident in the choices a state makes about the deployment of someplatforms rather than others.

To go back to the peculiar case of contemporary China, the trebling, in real terms, ofChinese military expenditures over the last ten years7 and the reassessment of equilibriumsin a way favorable to the PLAN,8 has allowed an overall improvement of naval forces. Inthis process, however, there has been unevenness in the progress made by the PLAN, whichis reflected in the type of platforms developed and deployed and tends to indicate that navalmodernization is propelled by three driving forces, each of which is pursued with differentintensities. An observation of the decennial trend in China’s naval modernization showsthat the PLAN has made very moderate progress in its capacity to project power from thesea, while efforts to protect sea lines of communication, though much more significant,seem to have been continuously trumped by the more urgent task to create a maritime bufferzone through the accelerated development of a reliable sea-denial capacity.

China’s Moderate Progress in Maritime Power Projection:Taiwan as a Secondary Factor

One of the foremost principles of maritime strategy brought to light by Julian Corbett is thatcontrolling the sea can rarely be conceived as an ultimate and self-sufficient objective. Inhis own words, “[s]ince men live upon the land and not upon the sea, great issues betweennations at war have always been decided—except in the rarest cases—either by what yourarmy can do against your enemy’s territory and national life or else by the fear of what thefleet makes it possible for your army to do.”9 The century that has passed since this statementwas made has brought some changes in the relations between the sea and the land but hasnot undermined the basic logic of Corbett’s axiom. As noticed in a U.S. Navy report, “70%of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the sea,”10 which obviously means thatimprovements in weapon range and accuracy have dramatically increased the vulnerabilityof the land to direct application of military power from the sea.11 However, in spite ofthis progress in the navy’s ability to strike directly the land from the sea, “[a]mphibiousoperations are the main subset of maritime power projection,”12 and, in this perspective, thepivotal role of naval forces is to securely transport land power from one coast to another.

One of the driving forces behind China’s naval modernization could thus be the questfor the ability to project power across the seas. As China continues to reserve its right to useforce against what could be considered by Beijing as a Taiwanese move toward secession,there is something obvious in the link usually traced between PLAN modernization andthe Taiwan question.13 Indeed, though China has significantly expanded its ability to harmTaiwan, most notably through the deployment of more than one thousand short-rangeballistic missiles,14 these efforts constitute an imperfect guarantee of Beijing’s interests.The growing arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles pointed at the island fits a strategy shapedfor deterring Taiwan from moving away from the current status quo better than one aiming

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at bringing the island to accept unification on Beijing’s terms.15 Should Beijing considerthat Taiwan is unduly delaying unification—or should it have to reverse a “provocation”from an independence-bent government on the island—the preservation of Chinese interestswould be determined, to a large extant, by its ability to project military power through thestrait onto the island.

As pointed out one decade ago by Michael O’Hanlon, a large-scale Chinese attackon Taiwan would impose considerable requirements upon the People’s Liberation Army.Indeed, a successful amphibious assault would require Chinese forces to

achieve air superiority . . . , use maneuver, surprise, and strength to land forcesin a place where they locally outnumber defenders in troops and firepower[and] try to strengthen its initial lodgement faster than the defender can bringadditional troops and equipment to bear.16

This complexity and multidimensionality of a large-scale attack on Taiwan is reflectedin major works published by China’s National Defense University. The 2006 edition ofthe often-quoted On Campaigns argues that, in addition to the acquisition of the highestdegree of sea control,17 an operation aiming at seizing an island requires “seeking andannihilating enemy’s main naval and air forces,” “cutting off the liaison between the enemyand the island,” “attacking enemy forces stationed on the island,” and “closing down thesea zone around the landing area.”18 Aside from the need to concentrate forces so as togain superiority and hide one’s own war plan, Xue Xinglin also points at the need for“obtaining command of the information [xinxiquan], command of the air [zhikongquan]and command of the sea [zhihaiquan] . . . and to maintain them throughout the process ofthe war.”19 However, building up aerial, naval and information superiority is a necessaryprerequisite rather than a self-sufficient objective in the scenario of a war in the Strait. Whatwould remain of crucial importance for the PLA is to be able “within a short time span,[to] disembark more assault troops and create quantitative superiority against enemy forcesresisting the landing.”20

Interpreting Chinese naval modernization as stemming primarily from Beijing’s will-ingness to achieve the long-awaited unification leads us to expect a strong move towardthe rapid acquisition of power-projection capability. In other words, China’s willingness touse the sea for power-projection purposes would at least require acquiring first a workingcontrol of the sea21—which also means achieving control of the air, the subsurface22 andspace—but PLAN modernization should be driven by a strong and concomitant impulsetoward the acquisition of the platforms that could “transport” China’s power across thestrait.

There is little doubt that China’s ability to gain command over the strait has beensignificantly increasing over the last two decades. Chinese naval forces have little to fearfrom Taiwan’s meager submarine force (Taiwan possesses only two Zwaardvis that werepurchased from the Netherlands in the mid-1980s)23 and the past superiority Taiwanesehad in the air has been gradually eroding. The combination of large—and increasinglyaccurate—missile forces and solid air forces at least on a technological par with theirTaiwanese counterpart24 endow China with better chances of gaining “air superiority” inthe strait though “air supremacy,” defined as the unimpeded use of this common, is likelyto remain out of reach25 as Taiwan continues to improve its air-defense capabilities.

Over the last decade, China also improved its ability to transport forces across thestrait. In 2000, Michael O’Hanlon estimated that PLAN’s “amphibious ships could moveno more than 10,000 to 15,000 troops with their equipment, including some 400 armoured

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vehicles.”26 In the following decade, Chinese naval forces have made some visible progressas they deployed new classes of landing ships, Yuting II and Yunshu, and as its first LandingPlatform Dock, Yuzhao, was put to sea.27 However, according to the figures from the 2009edition of The Military Balance, China’s landing ships and platform docks were able tomove fewer than 25,000 troops and around 750 tanks.

The pace of this decennial trend in the development of amphibious capability thusappears as less than impressive, to the point that the 2009 Annual Report to Congressby the Department of Defense considered that “PLA air and amphibious lift capacityhas not improved appreciably since 2000 when the Department of Defense assessed thePLA as capable of sealift of one infantry division.”28 This limitation appears clearly inthe scenario of a vast operation to overtake Taiwan. Indeed, PLAN progress in maritimepower-projection capability remains quite surely insufficient, as Chinese troops committedto an invasion would still have to overcome the same kind of resistance Michael O’Hanlondescribed one decade ago,29 that is, 200,000 active-duty ground troops and possibly upto 1.5 million reservists.30 Moreover, there are reasons to consider that the acquisition ofamphibious ships has been less rapid than it could have been if power projection ontothe land and forced unification had been a priority. According to figures provided by theInternational Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), China acquired ten Yunshu, nine Yuting-II, and one Yuting-I between 2005 and 2007. However, only one Yuting-II and one Yuzhaowere added to Chinese amphibious forces between 2007 and 2009, and there were no newlanding ships deployed between 2001 and 2005, though China acquired three Yuting-Ibetween 1999 and 2001.31 This moderation is made even more salient considering that itcan be neither explained by absolute budgetary constraints nor by the fact that Chinesenaval forces would have already attained a satisfying level of power projection in a Taiwancontingency. In other words, it appears quite certain that China deliberately chose to limitthe development of its amphibious forces, thus putting into question the role of the Taiwanscenario as the driving force of Chinese naval modernization.

This is surely not to say that the thrust of Chinese naval modernization can be detachedfrom the Taiwan question. The large fleet of modern submarines China acquired in thepost–Cold War period would provide Beijing with a pivotal asset should the situation inthe strait flare up. It would, however, be more useful in a strategy aiming at preventingthe United States from intervening in the crisis than in one aiming at crippling Taiwan’seconomy.32 However, the fact that China’s newly acquired submarine fleet would havean obvious use in a Taiwan crisis involving an American intervention does not entailthis scenario to constitute the exclusive rationale behind China’s interest for area-denialcapabilities. Indeed, one might as well understand the Taiwanese flashpoint as a symptomrather than as the root of China-U.S. rivalry in East Asia. In this sense, the saliency ofthe Taiwan question in U.S.-China relations is the result of regional power dynamics andconstraints that are at the root of Chinese choices for its naval modernization.

From Vulnerability to Security? China’s Increasing Efforts to Protectits Maritime Lifelines

While the sea can be an efficient medium used to reach an adversary, it is at least an equallyformidable medium to link trade partners. In Alfred Mahan’s famous words,

The first and most obvious light in which the sea presents itself from thepolitical and social point of view is that of a great highway; or better, perhaps,of a wide common, over which men may pass in all directions, but one which

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some well-worn paths show that controlling reasons have led them to choosecertain lines of travel rather than others. These lines of travel are called traderoutes; and the reasons which have determined them are to be sought in thehistory of the world.33

In spite of considerable technological changes, including the advent and development of airtransportation, Mahan’s “wide common” remains the primary medium of transportation forinternational trade.34 Global sea lines of communication (SLOCs) also remain vulnerableto the same kinds of threats, piracy, and interruption by unfriendly nations, identified byMahan. For these reasons, one might still see much relevance to Mahan’s axiom that:

The necessity of a navy, in the restricted sense of the word, springs, therefore,from the existence of peaceful shipping and disappears with it, except in thecase of a nation which has aggressive tendencies, and keeps a navy merely asa branch of the military establishment.35

A somewhat trite consequence of this is that a state whose welfare is increasingly dependingon its seaborne trade should be increasingly interested in giving some muscle to its navy soas to gain control over the sea it uses and protect its lifelines. In this sense, the concomitantrise of China’s trade and navy could be interpreted as an archetypal case of Mahan’s generallaw.

In three decades of “reforms and opening,” China’s share in world merchandise tradehas grown from a meagre 0.9% in 1979 to 8.8% in 2009.36 According to World TradeOrganization statistics, China was the twenty-fifth largest trading nation, ranked behindAustria and Poland; thirty years later, China ranked second, just behind the United Statesand ahead of Germany. As measured in current dollars, China’s trade with the world in2009 was six times larger than it was in 1999, nineteen times larger than in 1989, andseventy-six times larger than in 1979.37 This spectacular integration of China within worldtrade networks has entailed a mechanical increase of China’s dependency on maritimecommunication, a change illustrated by the fact that among the twenty-three major tradepartners listed by China’s General Administration of Customs in 2009, only four share aborder with China.38

Of the main commodities China imports, oil has been the one that attracted mostattention. After losing self-sufficiency in oil in 1993, Chinese imports have been steadilyrising and made China the third-largest importer of crude oil in 2008.39 In 2009, accordingto China’s customs, imports in crude oil exceeded two hundred million tons, with an oilbill reaching $89.26 billion.40 In the same year, among the ten largest suppliers of oilto China, only Russia and Kazakhstan could be reached by land, while the eight otherswere located in Africa and Middle East.41 In other words, roughly one third of all the oilbarrels used to fuel China’s economic development in 2009 had to travel along the sealines of communication that run across Indian Ocean and pass through the Southeast Asianstraits. As its oil production is likely to be only one decade away from its peak,42 and asthere are some natural and political limits to the volumes its land neighbors are likely tosupply, China’s dependency upon sea lines is likely to continue increasing in the foreseeablefuture.43

Drawing on Mahan’s axiom, Chinese naval modernization could be seem as stemmingfrom the need to preserve these vital veins and arteries.44 As put forth by James Holmes andToshi Yoshihara, given the existing power distribution and present rivalries in East Asia,“Beijing is understandably wary of entrusting its energy security to the US Navy or other

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regional navies”45 and would be undoubtedly more satisfied with a situation where its navycan ensure the security of its sea-borne trade. Such an objective would require China todevelop a strong capacity to control the sea, not only in South China Sea and other nearbywaters, but also in all of the areas where the security of its trade might be frightened, asit would make little sense to protect only the last segment of incoming lines or the firstsegment of outgoing ones. This entails that “[a] campaign [aiming at the] protection ofmaritime communication needs to protect the whole length of the line of communication”46

as the likely adversary inherently possesses the initiative and is more likely to attack anundefended or weakly defended segment if possible. Applied to the specific case of Chineseoil imports, protecting sea lines of communication implies that control over the area coveredby South China Sea would be desirable, but is in itself insufficient as supply lines couldthen be easily cut by the U.S. Navy anywhere between Malacca and Ormuz or East Africa.

This distinction between protecting lines of communications running close to the coast[jinan jiaotongxian] and lines of communication in the open ocean [yuanyang baojiao] isindeed clearly identified by Xue Xinglin. Defending nearby communication lines is madeeasier by the very location of these lines that usually fall “within the area of responsibility forland-based air defense and coastal defense.”47 Though naval forces naturally have a primaryrole to play in the protection of communications at sea, the peculiar configuration of theselines implies that ground and missile forces, as well as land-based air forces, can play asignificant supporting role in gaining control over the sea, the underwater, and the air.48

Conversely, it is much more difficult to “obtain command of the sea and command of theair over a stretch of the ocean,”49 which in turn makes protecting oceanic communicationsan extremely demanding task. A navy whose objectives include protecting sea lines onthousands of miles requires building up a navy with “aircraft carriers as center pieces,[and] missile destroyers (or cruisers) and nuclear-powered attack submarines as backboneforces.”50

In the case of Chinese naval forces, even if we exclude the peculiar and somewhatpretentious temptation (considering likely adversaries) of building a navy that could standa chance in a battle for general and permanent command of the sea,51 defending sea lineswould thus still require a wide range of capacity and platforms in order to acquire workingcontrol of the sea, and thus working control of the air and subsurface. More precisely, as putforth by James Bussert, Chinese naval forces would need “the anti-air warfare and escortcapability provided by modern surface combatant.”52 In the same way a carrier “battle groupcould form a vital component of SLOCs defense, especially in the vast and vital expanseof the Indian Ocean which is and will be predominantly beyond the reach of land-basedaviation even if China’s air forces make substantial progress in aerial refueling.”53

After a decade of marginal improvements,54 the modernization of Chinese surfaceforces has been evolving at a livelier pace. The 1999 PLAN surface forces55 were mainlybuilt around sixteen Luda destroyers, which “represent(ed) an important PLAN transitionto the missile age, but suffer from significant defects in terms of turn-of-the-century navaltechnology such as systems integration, ASW suite, and air defense,”56 and thirty-oneJianghu frigates which, considering “the lack of a combat direction center in most ships ofthe class,” were “essentially unable to operate in a modern naval warfare environment.”57

The turn to a modern navy, however, was made visible by the deployment of two Luhudestroyers, which have been considered as “the first Chinese-built surface combatant[s] thatmee[t] modern standard”58 and four Jiangwei I frigates, the first Chinese frigates to possesssome air defense system.59 Advances by Chinese surface naval forces in the followingdecade have been much more visible. In this relatively short period, eleven destroyers offive different classes and sixteen frigates of three different classes have joined the PLAN.

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While the single Luhai was essentially a bigger and slightly improved Luhu,60 the fourSovremmeny purchased from Russia initiated a steep qualitative jump of surface forces61

and seem to have been a source of inspiration for new Chinese-built platforms.62 While allthese platforms have been equipped with high-performance anti-ship missiles of Chineseand Russian design,63 the later Luyang II and Luzhou destroyers have provided China withan area air defense capacity.64 Jiangwei II and Jiangkai I and II frigates have unsurprisinglyfollowed the same development curve, showing significant improvements in anti-surfaceand anti-air capabilities. All these platforms also deploy Z-9 or Helix helicopters thatprovide China with some anti-submarine warfare capabilities, though progress in thissector seem to have been more limited.65

In some ways, China’s aircraft carrier has been like Georges Bizet’s Arlesienne; it isin many ways the central character of the play, but to date, it has yet to appear on the stage.According to Admiral Robert Willard, the Varyag/Shi Lang, which China has been refittingsince 2002 after it had been towed halfway around the world, might “become operationalaround 2012, and will likely be used to develop basic carrier skills.”66 The choice of amedium carrier such as the Varyag can easily be explained by budgetary and technologicalconstraints, but it also might be seen as a deliberate choice to acquire a carrier that might notbe fit for strike mission but sufficient for air superiority mission along Chinese SLOCs,67

which confirms China’s particular interest in enhancing the security of its supply lines.While Chinese choices in modernizing PLAN undoubtedly enhance its ability to secure

SLOCs, it also seems that China has not been interested in acquiring immediately and at anyprice a full-fledged capability to insure such protection. In 2008, James Bussert estimatedthat the build-up of a Chinese navy fit for SLOCs-protection missions “would necessitatethe construction of over sixty major surface combatants, assuming that overall force levelsremained nearly constant.”68 At the current pace of production, China would then needthree decades to acquire such a fleet. Moreover, the fact that China only deployed a coupleof units of each new class of destroyer, and the incremental improvements between thesenew classes, seems also to indicate that it is still in the search of a more adaptable platformthat could securely fulfil sea control missions. China also seems to have proceeded slowlyon its carrier plans. Should the Varyag be the first Chinese carrier, one decade would havebeen necessary to complete renovation for a carrier, while at this time India has beennegotiating to buy the smaller but immediately operational and fully equipped Gorshkovfor $4 billion.69 China also preferred to copy the Su-33 to produce its own J-15, which madeits maiden flight in August 2009, instead of paying $2.5 billion to acquire carrier-basedaircraft off-the-shelf in 2006.70 In this sense, China seems to have prioritized its long-termability to provide protection for its SLOCs over an immediate capacity to do so.

The Surge of Sea-Denial Forces and the Quest for Regional Primacy

While the build-up of naval forces might be an answer to specific needs in terms ofpower projection and SLOCs security, a focus on great power politics provides us with asomewhat different picture of the role of seapower on the international chessboard. In theirseminal work, George Modelski and William Thompson thus emphasize that “seapower(or, more precisely, ocean power) is the sine qua non of action in global politics becauseit is the necessary (though not the sufficient) condition of operations of global, that is,intercontinental, scope.”71 In a world where regions have reclaimed their full rights as therelevant level for security concerns and calculus,72 this axiom takes a particular saliencein that it draws a clear line between powers with regional and global ambitions, and howthese powers will integrate seapower in their respective calculus.

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Regions, or in Barry Buzan’s words “regional security complexes,”73 can be conceivedas international subsystems or “miniature anarchies”74 that are ruled by the same laws validfor global systems.75 The existence of regional security complexes stems from the factthat security interdependence between states directly depends on their ability to interactmilitarily.76 As projected military power is eroded by distance,77 “[s]imple physical ad-jacency tends to generate more security interaction among neighbours than among stateslocated in different areas.”78 This implies that “security complexes [that] are regions asseen through the lens of security” are likely to be “territorially based.”79

While regional security complexes have a “relatively strong, inward-lookingcharacter,”80 one of their salient features is that they “are inherently open systems.”81

In other words, great global powers might be able to intervene in distant regions if theypossess sufficient and relevant means. The openness of regional systems thus implies that acrucial game is played at the regional-global nexus between the dominant regional power,or the potential regional hegemon, and global powers.82 While the former has a stronginterest in insulating its own region from “outside” influence, because an intervention bya global power will consist of “offshore-balancing” against it,83 the latter has converselyevery reason to try keeping the distant region potentially open to its intervention, if onlybecause the advent of a regional hegemon that will be a peer competitor at the global levelis, at the very least, undesirable.84

At the naval level, the difference between the interests of regional and global actorsoverlaps with the particular logic of sea power. Opening the second part of his seminalwork, Julian Corbett pointed out:

The object of naval warfare must always be directly or indirectly to secure thecommand of the sea or to prevent the enemy from securing it.The second part of the proposition should be noted with special care in orderto exclude a habit of thought, which is one of the commonest sources oferror in naval speculation. That error is the very general assumption that ifone belligerent loses the command of the sea it passes at once to the otherbelligerent.85

Depending on the ultimate objective pursued, a strategy aiming at commanding the seamight therefore be necessary or blatantly oversized, and a strategy limited to denyingcommand to the opponent might be sufficient or dangerously deficient. In the context ofa struggle at the regional-global nexus, “[g]lobal powers must demonstrate that they havethe capacity to operate over long, transoceanic distances by assembling at least a minimalnaval capability.”86 Naval superiority—and even naval supremacy—might not be sufficientto guarantee victory;87 however, without the “multifaceted enabling capacity”88 of seapower, very little, if anything at all, can be accomplished in distant regions. Conversely,regional powers and potential regional hegemons, which, by definition, have unimpededaccess to their own regions, can be relatively unconcerned with their ability to securecommand of the sea. Their primary interest will thus lie in transforming the sea into aninsuperable barrier for the adversary fleet. A situation in which command is in dispute, anuncommanded sea, is thus a situation that could be highly satisfying, if not optimal, for aregional power facing a global one.

With the development of the aircraft and submarine, however, “command of the surface[has become] increasingly a prize that must be sought elsewhere.”89 The three mediums, air,sea, and the underwater medium, are today interconnected in a way that implies that navalwarfare is not about “playing three games of simultaneous chess,” but rather about “playing

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one game on three boards with pieces that may jump from one board to another.”90 Gainingcommand of the sea has thus become an even more demanding and complex objectivebecause it requires gaining sufficient command of underwater and command of the air.An obvious corollary of this is that denying command of the sea has become, in a sense,simpler as it can be sought not only on surface, but equally above and below it.

The backbone of any navy whose main objective is to keep command of the sea indispute is therefore its submarine forces. Owen Cote emphasized that:

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, submarines have been the weaponof choice for weaker naval powers that wish to contest a dominant power’scontrol of the seas or its ability to project power ashore from the sea. This isbecause submarines have been and are likely to remain the weapon system withthe highest leverage in a battle for control of the ocean surface.91

The swift move from an aging submarine fleet to a modern one that has characterized China’snaval modernization tends thus to put in light a particularly strong interest in building forcesthat would be able to keep at bay a stronger opponent by denying him command of the sea.In 1999, out of the sixty-three platforms that composed Chinese diesel submarine forces,92

two thirds were obsolete Romeo93 and one third were slightly less obsolete Ming.94 Effortsto build a modern submarine fleet were made visible by the presence of four Kilo purchasedfrom Russia and one indigenously developed Song, representing the remaining 8 percent ofthe fleet. During the second half of the 1990s, however, the PLAN encountered significantproblems with both platforms. The Chinese Navy had difficulty learning how to operatethe more efficient but more sophisticated Kilo,95 and its first Song was handicapped by itsrelative noisiness and difficult systems integration.96

Within a ten-year time span, Chinese submarine forces have gone through an acceler-ated process of modernization driven by what John Hill identifies as a typically Chinese“dual-track approach.”97 In 2009, between one half and three fifths of the submarines de-ployed by China were Kilo, Song, or Yuan,98 thus belying Cassandra’s predictions. Thedelivery of eight more Kilo for a total of twelve boats, ten of which are of the more advancedProject 636 type, provided China with a platform “as quiet as the Los Angeles–class sub-marines in the U.S. Fleet,”99 equipped with the very capable Klub anti-ship cruise missile(ASCM),100 while at the same time “the PLAN appears to have mastered their operation.”101

Problems with Song submarines seem to have been overcome as well. According to WilliamMurray, “it is likely that the Song is the rough equivalent of a mid-1980s Western dieselsubmarine, which makes it a formidable, quiet submarine that will be very difficult to detectand locate, at least when the vessel operates on its batteries.”102 The launch, in 2004, of theYuan,103 which “might best be described as either ‘a Kilo with Chinese characteristics,’ ora ‘Song with Russian characteristics,”’104 constituted a further step in the acquisition of anadvanced submarine fleet. The Yuan, which has been reported as being possibly equippedwith Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP),105 “is probably especially quiet”106 and is likely tocarry systems more advanced than those of the Song—e.g., the C-802 anti-ship missile.107

The impressive reinforcement of submarine forces is not an isolated trend in Chinesemilitary modernization but appears as a major piece of China’s overall efforts to build up anarea (region)–denial capability. China pursued its traditional efforts to secure coastal areasby deploying a new generation of high-performance patrol crafts, the Houbei, of whichmore than fifty have been deployed in the last half decade. Equipped with YJ-8 ASCM,“the Houbei’s ability to patrol coastal and littoral waters and react at short notice allowsthe PLA(N)’s larger combatants to focus on offshore defense and out-of-area missions

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without leaving a gap along China’s coastline.”108 China equally developed importantmine-warfare capability, which might make the deployment of adversarial naval forcesmuch more complex should China try to mine U.S. bases in the Western Pacific.109 Beyondthe traditional air cover that land-based aircraft might provide to Chinese surface forces,with the purchase of twenty-four Su-30 MKK2 in 2004 and the deployment of the lesscapable JH-7, together with the transformation of some of the venerable H-6 bombersso as to make them able to carry cruise missiles, the PLANAF seems to have developedan increasing interest in maritime strike missions.110 Combined with the deployment ofincreasingly efficient ASCM and the development of anti-ship ballistic missiles,111 thesedevelopments tend to confirm that China is building up a robust force that could denyaccess to the global powers that could constitute obstacles on its path toward primacy orhegemony in East Asia.

Conclusion

The first and obvious observation that can be made about Chinese naval modernization isthat it has been an all-encompassing move reflecting all dimensions of the PLAN. However,an examination of the platforms deployed over the last decade seems to indicate that Chinahas given a relatively higher priority to the reinforcement of its ability to deny command ofthe sea, and the use of it, to potential adversarial forces, i.e., the U.S. Navy. Comparatively,China appears to have been less interested in developing its maritime power-projectioncapability, which means that it either did not see power projection as a primary priority orthat it could be achieved through non-naval channels. In this sense, the modest advancesof China’s amphibious capacity tend to question the idea that the forced resolution of theTaiwan question is the main driving force of Chinese naval modernization. Finally, theneed to protect Chinese SLOCs seems to be an increasingly important force driving themodernization of the PLAN, though the pace of change seems to have been slightly lessrapid than in the case of Chinese sea-denial capability.

This decennial trend in Chinese naval modernization does not mean that China willremain prisoner of this orientation, though radical changes in the proximate future areless likely. As wise motto of financial advisers goes, “past performances do not guaranteefuture results.” China’s naval modernization remains an ongoing process and China mightdecide to revive its efforts to obtain a credible amphibious force, especially should anindependence-bent force become the governing party in Taiwan, or to turn its surface fleetinto a blue-water sea-control force. It is, however, unlikely that China’s efforts to acquire arobust sea-denial fleet could be overshadowed by both other trends as long as China is not ina position to successfully claim hegemony over East Asia, an objective that can be achievedonly if China has the ability to keep U.S. forces away from the region. As wittily coinedby Bradley Thayer, “[g]reat power competition never takes a holiday”112 and constraintsimposed by this competition are likely to continue to shape Chinese naval modernization.

Notes

1. “China Begins Landmark Somali Piracy Patrols,” France 24, January 6, 2009 available athttp://www.france24.com/en/20090106-china-begins-landmark-somali-piracy-patrols

2. John J. Tkacik, Jr., “Online Debate: Does China Pose a Military Threat?” March 26, 2007,available at http://www.cfr.org/publication/12901/does china pose a military threat.html

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3. “U.S. Navy Provoked South China Sea Incident, China Says,” New York Times, March 10,2009, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/world/asia/10iht-navy.4.20740316.html?r=1

4. As put forth by Geoffrey Till, “there are two sets of strategic uses [of the sea]: the capacityto project military power ashore, and to use the sea as a means of transportation.” Geoffrey Till,Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 193. One can, however,make a difference between both uses in that in the first case, a supplementary “layer” of naval capacityspecifically designed for power projection onto the land is required, while in the second case, thevery existence of a fleet able to command the sea is sufficient—i.e., the sea is “used” here bymaritime/civilian ships.

5. John B. Hattendorf, “Recent Thinking on the Theory of Naval Strategy,” in John B. Hatten-dorf and Robert S. Jordan, eds., Maritime Strategy and the Balance of Power (New York: St. Martin’sPress, 1989), 153.

6. Stansfield M. Turner, “Designing a Modern Navy: A Workshop Discussion,” in JonathanAlford, ed., Sea Power and Influence: Old Issues and New Challenges (Farnborough: Institute forStrategic Studies, 1980), 67.

7. “Military Expenditures [China],” SIPRI, available at http://first.sipri.org/search?country=CHN&dataset=military-expenditure

8. Bernard D. Cole, Great Wall at Sea: China’s Navy Enters the Twenty-First Century (An-napolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001), 180.

9. Julian S. Corbett, Principles of Maritime Strategy (New York: Dover Publications, 2004),14. This is closely echoed by Colin Gray’s analysis of “the leverage of sea power”: “Navies fightat sea only for the strategic effect they can secure ashore, where people live.” Colin S. Gray, TheLeverage of Sea Power (New York: The Free Press, 1992), 1.

10. Department of the Navy, 1997 Posture Statement, available at http://www.navy.mil/navydata/policy/fromsea/pos97/pos-pg01.html

11. Eric Grove, The Future of Sea Power (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990), 46.12. Till, Seapower, 199.13. The 2000 White Paper on The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue states: “a grave

turn of events occurs leading to the separation of Taiwan from China in any name, or if Taiwan isinvaded and occupied by foreign countries, or if the Taiwan authorities refuse, sine die, the peacefulsettlement of cross-Straits reunification through negotiations, then the Chinese government willonly be forced to adopt all drastic measures possible, including the use of force, to safeguard China’ssovereignty and territorial integrity and fulfill the great cause of reunification” (Taiwan Affairs Office,The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue, February 21, 2000, available at http://www.gwytb.gov.cn:8088/detail.asp?table=WhitePaper&title=White Papers On Taiwan Issue&m id=4). Chinaalso warned that it would intervene should Taiwan try to acquire a nuclear capacity or hold areferendum on its independence. See Sheng Lijun, China and Taiwan: Cross-Straits Relations UnderChen Shui-bian (London: ZED Book, 2003), 45.

14. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of thePeople’s Republic of China, 2009, p. VIII, available at http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/ChinaMilitary Power Report 2009.pdf

15. This simply mirrors the classical distinction between “deterrence” and “compellence.” SeeThomas C. Shelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), 71–91.

16. Michael O’Hanlon, “Why China Cannot Conquer Taiwan,” International Security, vol. 25,no. 2 (Fall 2000): 54.

17. Zhang Yuliang, Science of Military Campaigns (Beijing: National Defense UniversityPress, 2006), 537.

18. Ibid.19. Xue Xinglin, Campaign Theory Studies Guidebook (Beijing: National Defense University

Press, 2002), 227.20. Ibid., 228.

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21. Admiral Reason insists that “there is no power projection from the sea without control ofthe sea”: See J. Paul Reason, Sailing New Seas (Newport: Naval War College Press, 1998), 18.

22. Laurence W. Martin, The Sea in Modern Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1967), 94.23. International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Military Balance 2009 (London:

IISS, 2009), 410; “Transfers of Major Conventional Weapons [Taiwan],” SIPRI Arms TransfersDatabase, available at http://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers

24. The last purchase of aircraft by Taiwan took place in the beginning of the 1990s, whileChina has since acquired Su-27s and Su-30s from Russia and developed its own J-10—whose initialperformances are considered to be matching roughly those of the F-16 Block 30. See Bernard D. Cole,“The Military Instrument of Statecraft at Sea: Naval Options in an Escalatory Scenario InvolvingTaiwan: 2007–2016,” in Michael D. Swaine, Andrew N. D. Yang, and Evan S. Meideros with OrianaSkylar Mastro, eds., Assessing the Threat (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for InternationalPeace, 2007), 153–185; and Jane’s Information Group, World Air Forces 2007 (Coulsdon: Jane’sInformation Group, 2007), 109.

25. Richard P. Hallion, “Airpower Past, Present and Future,” in Richard P. Hallion, ed., Air-power Confronts an Unstable World (London: Brassey’s, 1997), 4–5.

26. O’Hanlon, “Why China Cannot Conquer Taiwan,” 62.27. “Type 071 Landing Platform Dock,” Sinodefence.com, available at http://www.

sinodefence.com/navy/amphibious/type071.asp; “Type 072-III (Yuting-II) Class Large LandingShip,” Sinodefence.com, available at http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/amphibious/type072iiiyuting2.asp

28. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of thePeople’s Republic of China, 2009, p. VIII.

29. O’Hanlon, “Why China Cannot Conquer Taiwan,” 62.30. IISS, Military Balance 2009, 410.31. IISS, The Military Balance 1999 (London: IISS, 1999), 187–188; IISS, The Military

Balance 2001 (London: IISS, 2001), 190; IISS, The Military Balance 2003 (London: IISS, 2003),154; IISS, The Military Balance 2005 (London: IISS, 2005), 273; IISS, The Military Balance 2007(London: IISS, 2007), 349; IISS, Military Balance 2009, 385. We do not take into account thequestionable variation in the number of Yuliang—which vary from 31 in 1999 to 17 in 2005 and backto 31 in 2009. Another source indicates that 31 of these ships were built between 1972 and 1983 andwere still deployed in 2008; see “Type 079 (Yulian Class) Medium Landing Ship,” Sinodefence.com,http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/amphibious/type079 yulian.asp

32. Robert Scott Ross remarked that crippling Taiwan does not require China to engage in amaritime blockade of the island, as Taiwan’s welfare is increasingly depending on cross-strait trade andTaiwanese firms have considerable investments on the mainland. Therefore, “an effective mainlandeconomic blockade simply requires Beijing to impose bilateral sanctions to prohibit mainland tradewith Taiwan and to nationalize Taiwan industries on the mainland.” Robert S. Ross, “ExplainingTaiwan’s Revisionist Diplomacy,” Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 15, no. 48 (2006): 447.Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council estimates that more than 28% of Taiwan’s trade was made withthe mainland in 2009, while approved investments over the last two decades have reached more than$82 billion (“Cross-Strait Economic Statistics Monthly No. 205,” available at http://www.mac.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=78928&ctNode=5934&mp=3&xq xCat=2009).

33. Alfred T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (New York: Cosimo Classics,2007), 25.

34. More than nine tenths of world trade is carried by sea. See International Maritime Or-ganization, International Shipping and World Trade Facts and Figures, October 7, 2009, avail-able at http://www.imo.org/includes/blastDataOnly.asp/data id%3D28127/InternationalShippingandWorldTrade-factsandfiguresoct2009rev1〈0:defs 〉〈?xmlpublish ?〉〈/0:defs〉tmp65768b41.pdf

35. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, 26.36. World Trade Organization Statistics Database, “Time Series: Total Trade Merchandise,”

available at http://stat.wto.org/StatisticalProgram/WSDBViewData.aspx?Language=E37. Ibid.

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38. “Main Exporting and Importing Nations (Regions), Total Value, December 2009,” GeneralAdministration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China, available at http://www.customs.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab400/module15677/info207141.htm

39. U.S. Energy Information Administration, “International Energy Statistics [Petroleum, Im-ports],” available at http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=57&aid=3&cid=regions,&syid=2004&eyid=2008&unit=TBPD

40. “Chinese Imports of Crude Oil in 2009 Have Topped 200 Million Tons,” General Ad-ministration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China, available at http://www.customs.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab2453/module72494/info214617.htm

41. “China’s Degree of Dependency upon Oil Imports Has Crossed the Danger Mark,” ChinaDaily, March 29, 2010, available at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hqcj/zxqxb/2010-03-29/86611.html. These eight states are Saudi Arabia, Angola, Iran, Sudan, Oman, Iraq, Kuwait, and Libya.

42. International Energy Agency (IEA), China’s Worldwide Quest for Energy Security (2000),47, available at http://www.iea.org/publications/free new Desc.asp?PUBS ID=1131

43. China’s oil demand is forecasted to grow from roughly eight million barrels per day in2009 to 11.3 million b/d in 2015 and 16.6 million b/d in 2030. This means that China might have toimport as much as 68 percent of its oil in 2015 and more than 75 percent in 2030. See InternationalEnergy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2008 (Paris: OECD/IEA, 2008), 93–103.

44. For a more extensive application of Mahan’s theory to Chinese naval power, see ThomasM. Kane, Chinese Grand Strategy and Maritime Power (London: Frank Cass, 2002) and JamesR. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century: The Turn to Mahan(London: Routledge, 2008).

45. Holmes and Yoshihara, Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century, 52.46. Xue, Campaign Theory Studies Guidebook, 484.47. Ibid., 486.48. Ibid., 487.49. Ibid., 489.50. Ibid., 487. Xue Xinglin goes on highlighting that these platforms must have robust anti-

surface and anti-submarine capabilities as well as advanced C3I and electronic warfare capabilities.51. Alfred Thayer Mahan emphasized that “secure communications at sea mean naval prepon-

derance” which is most perfectly achieved by sweeping enemy forces off the seas. See Alfred ThayerMahan, Mahan on Naval Strategy: Selections from the Writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Ma-han, ed. John B. Hattendorf (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 154. In this sense, “destroyingthe enemy fleet in battle” is the most efficient way to protect communications and gain completecommand of the sea by “settl[ing] the matter completely and permanently,” Bernard Brodie, A Guideto Naval Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 76.

52. James Bussert, “China’s Surface Combatants,” in Gabriel B. Collins, Andrew S. Erickson,Lyle J. Goldstein, and William S. Murray, eds., China’s Energy Strategy: The Impact on Beijing’sMaritime Policies (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008), 354.

53. Ibid., 360.54. In the 1990s, Chinese surface forces acquired two Luhu that replaced obsolete Anshan,

and four Jiangwei I and five Jianghu which replaced eleven units of three obsolete frigate classes.IISS, The Military Balance 1990 (London: IISS, 1990), 150; IISS, Military Balance 1999, 187.

55. IISS, Military Balance 1999, 187.56. Cole, Great Wall at Sea, 100.57. Ibid., 102.58. “Type 052 Luhu Class Missile Destroyer,” Sinodefence.com, available at http://www.

sinodefence.com/navy/surface/type052 luhu.asp59. Cole, Great Wall at Sea, 102.60. Ibid., 101.61. “China’s First Sovremenny Set Sails for Home,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, January 19, 2000;

David Shambaugh, Modernizing China’s Military: Progress, Problems and Prospects (Berkeley:University of California Press, 2002), 267.

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62. The 2006 Annual Report to Congress describes the Luyang I as similar to the Sovremenny.See Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People’sRepublic of China, 2006, p. 5, available at http://www.dod.mil/pubs/pdfs/China%20Report%202006.pdf

63. Jane’s Information Group, Jane’s Fighting Ships 2007–2008 (Coulsdon: Jane’s InformationGroup, 2007), 122–125. Sovremmenys carry Sunburn missiles, only two of which are reputedly nec-essary to incapacitate a destroyer, while Chinese-built destroyers carry the advanced sea-skimmingYJ-83. See Jane’s Information Group, Naval Weapons Systems, issue 46 (Coulsdon: Jane’s Informa-tion Group, 2007), 342.

64. Luyang II and Luzhou are equipped with vertical launch system air defense systems, respec-tively HHQ-9 and SA-N-20 Grumble (Jane’s Information Group, Jane’s Fighting Ships 2007–2008,122–125).

65. Only the two Luhu are reported to be equipped with variable-depth sonar (Ibid., 122–133).66. Robert F. Willard, “Statement before the House Armed Services Committee on Recent

Security Developments Involving China,” January 13, 2010, available at http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/FC011310/Willard Testimony011310.pdf

67. Nan Li and Christopher Weuve, “China’s Aircraft Carrier Ambitions: An Update,” NavalWar College Review, vol. 63, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 22–25.

68. Bussert, “China’s Surface Combatants,” 363.69. “Russia, India to Sign $4 Billion Military Technical Cooperation Contracts,” March 4,

2010, available at http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100304/158089800.html70. “China to Buy Su-33 Fighter from Russia,” Sinodefence.com, available at http://www.

sinodefence.com/news/2006/news06–10-24.asp; “Russia’s Iconic MiG and Sukhoi Fighters EnterCompetition with Chinese Clones,” Pravda, July 6, 2010, available at http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/06-07-2010/114138-russian fighter jets-0

71. George Modelski and William R. Thompson, Seapower in Global Politics, 1494–1993(London: The MacMillan Press, 1988), 13.

72. To borrow Barry Buzan’s vocabulary, the end of the Cold War can be seen as the endof a general situation of “overlay” in which “one or more external powers move directly into thelocal [security] complex with the effect of suppressing indigenous security dynamics.” Barry Buzan,People, States and Fear (Harlow: Pearson Education, 1991), 219–220.

73. Ibid., 186–229; Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, Regions and Powers: The Structure ofInternational Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

74. Buzan, People, States and Fear, 209.75. Ibid., 191.76. Michael Haas, “International Subsystems: Stability and Polarity,” The American Political

Science Review, vol. 64, no. 1 (March 1970): 100.77. This phenomenon was dubbed “loss-of-strength gradient” by Kenneth Boulding. See Ken-

neth E. Boulding, Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (New York: Harper & Row, 1962),230–232; for further refinements, see Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The War Trap (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1981), 103–108; Douglas Lemke, Regions of War and Peace (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2002), 70–81.

78. Buzan and Waever, Regions and Powers, 45.79. Ibid., 43–44.80. Buzan, People, States and Fear, 193.81. David A. Lake, “Regional Security Complexes: A Systems Approach,” in David A. Lake

and Patrick M. Morgan, eds., Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (University Park:Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), 60.

82. As a shortcut, I use the term “global powers” to identify powers with extra-regional reachthat try to project their military power into—and gain influence over—distant regions.

83. John M. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 2001), 234–266.

84. Ibid., 41.

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85. Corbett, Principles of Maritime Strategy, 87.86. Karen A. Rasler and William R. Thompson, The Great Powers and Global Struggle,

1490–1990 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1994), 17.87. Mahan himself conceded that “[t]he stronger navy . . . cannot carry war beyond the sea-

coast, home to the heart of the enemy, unless indeed its nation in addition to controlling the sea, cantransport an overpowering force of troops” Mahan, Mahan on Naval Strategy, 312.

88. Gray, Leverage of Sea Power, 289.89. Martin, Sea in Modern Strategy, 94.90. Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,

2000), 196.91. Owen R. Cote, Jr., The Third Battle: Innovation in the U.S. Navy’s Silent Cold War Struggle

with Soviet Submarines (Newport: Naval War College, 2003), 1.92. The parallel modernization of China’s nuclear submarine forces is not directly related to

the point developed here. For a complete analysis of these forces and their possible roles, see AndrewS. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, William S. Murray, and Andrew R. Wilson, eds., China’s FutureNuclear Submarine Force (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007).

93. The first Chinese Romeo was built in 1962 after the Soviet Union agreed to transferthe technologies of boats that were built during the 1950s in the Soviet Union but whose de-sign was derived from the German Type-XXI U-Boat (Jane’s Information Group, Jane’s Fight-ing Ships 2007–2008, 121; “Romeo-class Submarine,” available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/romeo.htm).

94. The Ming-class submarine, the first of which was launched in the beginning of the 1970s, isbasically a “moderately upgraded version of the Romeo” (Shambaugh, Modernizing China’s Military,273).

95. “China Should Receive its Third ‘Kilo’ by November,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, July 30,1997; Cole, Great Wall at Sea, 97.

96. “Beijing Will Wait and See Before Building New Ship,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, August18, 1999. More than five years separate the launch of the first and second Song and the very survivalof the Song program was at some point put into question by international analysts; see “China’sRussian Kilo Buy May Put Song Submarine Future in Doubt,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, June 12, 2002;Jane’s Information Group, Jane’s Fighting Ships 2007–2008, 118.

97. John Hill highlighted that “for every major Russian system purchased, there is a comparableChinese-developed system in train, in what can be seen as a dual-track approach to acquiring modernand balanced forces.” See John Hill, “China’s Armed Forces Set To Undergo Face-Lift,” Jane’sIntelligence Review, vol. 15, no. 2 (February 2003): 14.

98. Figures offered by Military Balance and Sinodefence.com differ slightly. IISS, MilitaryBalance 2009, 384; “Naval Vessels,” Sinodefence.com, available at http://www.sinodefence.com/navy/vessel.asp

99. Shambaugh, Modernizing China’s Military, 273.100. Jane’s Information Group, Jane’s Fighting Ships 2007–2008, 120; “3M-54 Klub SS-N-

27,” available at http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/club.htm101. “Navy Ambitions Continue to Grow in Line with Strategy,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, July

11, 2001.102. William S. Murray, “An Overview of the PLAN Submarine Force,” in Andrew S. Erickson,

Lyle J. Goldstein, William S. Murray, and Andrew R. Wilson, eds., China’s Future Nuclear SubmarineForce (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007), 61. The relative quietness of Song submarines wasillustrated in 2006 when one of them “was able to get within weapons range of the aircraft carrierUSS Kitty Hawk before it was detected” (“Marching Forward,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, April 25,2007). There is a discrepancy between the IISS and Sinodefence.com, as they respectively mentionthirteen and sixteen Song deployed in 2009 (IISS, Military Balance 2009, 384; “Naval Vessels”).

103. Between two and four Yuan have been launched between 2004 and 2009 (IISS, MilitaryBalance 2009, 384; “Naval Vessels”).

104. Murray, “Overview of the PLAN Submarine Force,” 61.

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105. Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), People’s Liberation Army Navy: A Modern Navywith Chinese Characteristics, 23, available at http://www.oni.navy.mil/Intelligence Community/docs/china army navy.pdf

106. Murray, “Overview of the PLAN Submarine Force,” 61; see also ONI, People’s LiberationArmy Navy, 22.

107. “Type 039A/B (Yuan Class) Diesel-Electric Submarine,” Sinodefence.com, available athttp://www.sinodefence.com/navy/sub/yuan.asp

108. ONI, People’s Liberation Army Navy, 20.109. Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and William S. Murray, Chinese Mine Warfare: A

PLA Navy “Assassin’s Mace” Capability, 53, available at http://www.usnwc.edu/Research—Gaming/China-Maritime-Studies-Institute/Publications/documents/CMS3 Mine-Warfare.aspx

110. ONI, People’s Liberation Army Navy, 24–25.111. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the

People’s Republic of China, 2009, 21; ONI, People’s Liberation Army Navy, 26–28.112. Bradley A. Thayer, “Confronting China: An Evaluation of Options for the United States,”

Comparative Strategy, vol. 24, no. 1 (2005): 71.

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