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On April 24, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report on China’s naval modernization, noting that, “China’s navy is, by far, the largest of any country in East Asia, and sometime between 2015 and 2020 it surpassed the U.S. Navy in numbers of battle force ships …” The CRS report then quotes the DOD, that China’s navy “is the largest navy in the world …”
As an Asian land power, why would China be rapidly expanding its navy?
A benign view of China’s naval buildup is that it is driven by its economic and security needs. As the world’s second-largest economy, it relies on maritime trade routes for energy and raw materials imports and exports of finished goods, making sea lane security paramount. Though, one might ask, security against what threat?
Of note, even though China has a base in Djibouti on the Red Sea, its navy has been wholly absent in keeping the vital waterway and path to the Suez Canal open in the face of piratical Houthi attacks on shipping. In fact, the U.S. government has credibly accused a Chinese satellite company of providing real-time intelligence to the Houthis to aid in their targeting of shipping, including the U.S. Navy. That China’s naval buildup and China’s increasing bellicosity align with paramount leader Xi Jinping’s vision of national rejuvenation linked to maritime command of the seas — far beyond Taiwan’s rocky shores.
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