Translation Tag: maritime strategy
The CCP Politburo holds “collective study sessions” on a semi-regular basis, in which an outside academic or government expert leads a discussion on a selected topic. Such sessions are important signals as to what issues the senior leadership finds important. The 16th collective study session of the 20th Central Committee Politburo was held on July 31, 2024 and was presided over by Xi Jinping. At this session, Xi delivered a speech emphasizing the need to improve, strengthen and modernize the sea, air, and border defense systems to achieve China’s modernization and ensure overall national security.
In this 2012 article, senior military scholar Ni Lexiong analyzes the historical course of China’s military modernization efforts, and argues that Beijing should invest in a strong blue-water navy to secure its expanding overseas economic interests and deter the formation of a U.S.-led maritime alliance designed to contain China. Ni also cautions that China should approach this process carefully, in order to avoid triggering security concerns among its maritime neighbors that could provoke to a regional arms race.
Xiu Chunping, a Taiwan scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argues that China-Japan relations will deteriorate in the foreseeable future as a result of Tokyo’s growing interest in regional security, particularly in and around the Taiwan Strait. She argues that Japan is increasingly willing to provide greater and more explicit economic, diplomatic, and military support for Taiwan, and draws on a complex mix of historical, geopolitical, and domestic political factors to explain this perceived shift – including Japan’s colonial legacy in Taiwan, power shifts between Japan and China, and the work of “Taiwan independence forces.”
Read-out from 2013 convening of the Politburo to discuss China’s strategy for becoming a “maritime superpower.”
This academic article by the deputy director of a major state-run maritime research institute offers an interpretive summary of long term-trends in PRC maritime policy and strategy.