10-16-2006, 03:01 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>China oils its war machine </b>
pioneer.com
Brahma Chellaney
A striking feature of a booming Asia is how energy demands are beginning to noticeably influence strategic thinking and military planning. With China seeking greater influence from the Pacific to the Himalayas, and from Central Asia to Africa, its rising dependence on oil imports has served to rationalise both its growing emphasis on the seas and its desire to carve out greater strategic space for itself.
China's advantage is that as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it wields more international clout than Tokyo or New Delhi. It can veto any UN sanctions proposal. <b>Beijing's ability to provide political cover is a fundamental element of its thriving commercial ties with a host of problem states, from Venezuela and Sudan to Iran and Burma</b>.
<b>China appears to be positioning itself along the vital sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. It has helped Iran upgrade its Bandar-e-Abbas port. It is building a deep-water port for Pakistan at Gwadar, situated at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz - the only exit for the Persian Gulf oil</b>.
<b>China has begun close military cooperation with Bangladesh. And it has strategically penetrated Burma, a well-positioned country abundant in natural resources. The Irrawaddy Corridor between China's Yunnan province and the Burmese ports on the Bay of Bengal has become a key economic and strategic passageway involving road, river, rail and harbour links</b>.
As part of what an internal Pentagon study has called a calculated Chinese policy to fashion a 'string of pearls', Beijing desires to hold sway over vital sea lanes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans through a chain of bases, naval facilities and military ties. One such 'pearl' in China's sea-lane strategy, Gwadar, will not only arm Pakistan with critical strategic depth against a 1971-style Indian attempt to bottle up its navy, but it will also open the way to the arrival of Chinese submarines in India's proximity, completing India's strategic encirclement by Beijing.
<b>Gwadar, one of the world's largest deep-sea ports that will double Pakistan's sea-trading capacity, <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>already houses a Chinese electronic listening post</span> </b>. Islamabad has presented Gwadar, with its planned petroleum-handling facilities, as a potential export port for energy resources transported by pipeline from Turkmenistan.
Beijing is reinforcing the strategic significance of Gwadar by linking it up with the Karakoram Highway to western China through the Chinese-aided Gwadar-Dalbandin railway extending up to Rawalpindi. In addition, the <b>Chinese-supported Makran coastal highway will link Gwadar with Karachi. Gwadar is a critical link in the chain of Chinese facilities that stretch from the Gulf of Siam to Bay of Bengal and then to Arabian Sea.</b>
<b>Chinese security agencies already operate electronic-intelligence and maritime reconnaissance facilities on the Coco Islands - transferred by India in the 1950s to Burma, which then leased them to Beijing in 1994.</b> The main electronic-intelligence gathering station located on the Great Coco Island was completed in 1994 itself, with its radars, antenna towers and electronic equipment forming a comprehensive signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection facility.
These agencies have also positioned their personnel at several Burmese coastal points, including the Chinese-built harbours at Kyaukypu and Thilawa, and other vantage locations close both to India's eastern strategic assets and to the Strait of Malacca, through which 80 per cent of China's imported oil passes.
<b>Other moves by China include the building of container ports in Bangladesh at Chittagong (a desired military 'pearl' in Chinese eyes) and in Sri Lanka at Hambantota; an offer to fund a $20-billion canal that would cross Thailand's Kra Isthmus, thereby allowing ships to bypass the Strait of Malacca and permitting Beijing to set up port facilities there; and the construction of a railway from China through Cambodia to the sea</b>.
In addition to its creeping jurisdiction claims, Beijing is seeking to enhance its capability to project air and sea power into the South China Sea to help safeguard its strategic interests. It has upgraded a military airstrip on Woody Island and stepped up its presence in the South China Sea through oil-drilling platforms and ocean-survey ships.
To help protect China's growing energy assets in Central Asia<b>, the People's Liberation Army is setting up at least two offensively configured, armour-heavy mechanised corps modelled after the Soviet Operational Manoeuvre Groups of the 1980s</b>. Using Xinjiang as their springboard, they will 'become China's new strategic weapon' in keeping with the new doctrine to fight deep inside enemy territory and secure oilfields. By 2010, <b>China intends to put into service four to six nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines that it is building as part of the so-called 'Project 094'. </b>That would considerably narrow the Sino-Russian gap in nuclear forces. Russia today has only two nuclear subs on patrol.
In the years ahead,<b> it is very likely that Chinese nuclear subs would appear in the Indian Ocean. The issue, in fact, is not 'if' but 'when'</b>. As underlined by its plans to build a blue-water navy, Beijing clearly perceives the sea as a sphere of opportunity for extending its strategic, political and trade influence.
Japan and India can hardly ignore the military implications of China's energy-driven moves. By assiduously cultivating regimes of strategically located states, <b>Beijing has secured important naval or eavesdropping access, ostensibly for building maritime safety.</b> Once the Chinese-built naval base-cum-port at Gwadar is complete, the Chinese Navy, with its access in Burma, will be able to operate on both Indian flanks.
In addition, <b>Beijing's broad-based military-cooperation agreement with Dhaka has four apparent objectives: To bring that country into the Chinese strategic orbit; gain naval and commercial access to Chittagong; develop Burma-Bangladesh road links; and secure a doorway to India's vulnerable northeast</b>. The irony is that a power that tried hard, first to stop the birth of Bangladesh, and then to deny it UN membership, has now succeeded in presenting itself to that very country as a strategic friend and counterpoise to India.
If the Chinese navy is to be pre-empted from challenging India's dominant position in the Indian Ocean, the Indian navy will have to play a bigger role in the Strait of Malacca, a critical chokepoint for Chinese trade and energy lines. Indian naval policing of the Malacca Strait will not only vex China but also help keep direct Sino-Indian naval competition away from India's own backyard.
In the coming years, the voracious appetite for energy supplies in Asia is going to make the energy geopolitics murkier. Mercantilist efforts to assert control over oil and natural gas supplies and transport routes certainly risk fuelling tensions and discord.
<i>(Excerpted from the author's just-published book, Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan, HarperCollins) </i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
pioneer.com
Brahma Chellaney
A striking feature of a booming Asia is how energy demands are beginning to noticeably influence strategic thinking and military planning. With China seeking greater influence from the Pacific to the Himalayas, and from Central Asia to Africa, its rising dependence on oil imports has served to rationalise both its growing emphasis on the seas and its desire to carve out greater strategic space for itself.
China's advantage is that as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it wields more international clout than Tokyo or New Delhi. It can veto any UN sanctions proposal. <b>Beijing's ability to provide political cover is a fundamental element of its thriving commercial ties with a host of problem states, from Venezuela and Sudan to Iran and Burma</b>.
<b>China appears to be positioning itself along the vital sea lanes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. It has helped Iran upgrade its Bandar-e-Abbas port. It is building a deep-water port for Pakistan at Gwadar, situated at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz - the only exit for the Persian Gulf oil</b>.
<b>China has begun close military cooperation with Bangladesh. And it has strategically penetrated Burma, a well-positioned country abundant in natural resources. The Irrawaddy Corridor between China's Yunnan province and the Burmese ports on the Bay of Bengal has become a key economic and strategic passageway involving road, river, rail and harbour links</b>.
As part of what an internal Pentagon study has called a calculated Chinese policy to fashion a 'string of pearls', Beijing desires to hold sway over vital sea lanes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans through a chain of bases, naval facilities and military ties. One such 'pearl' in China's sea-lane strategy, Gwadar, will not only arm Pakistan with critical strategic depth against a 1971-style Indian attempt to bottle up its navy, but it will also open the way to the arrival of Chinese submarines in India's proximity, completing India's strategic encirclement by Beijing.
<b>Gwadar, one of the world's largest deep-sea ports that will double Pakistan's sea-trading capacity, <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>already houses a Chinese electronic listening post</span> </b>. Islamabad has presented Gwadar, with its planned petroleum-handling facilities, as a potential export port for energy resources transported by pipeline from Turkmenistan.
Beijing is reinforcing the strategic significance of Gwadar by linking it up with the Karakoram Highway to western China through the Chinese-aided Gwadar-Dalbandin railway extending up to Rawalpindi. In addition, the <b>Chinese-supported Makran coastal highway will link Gwadar with Karachi. Gwadar is a critical link in the chain of Chinese facilities that stretch from the Gulf of Siam to Bay of Bengal and then to Arabian Sea.</b>
<b>Chinese security agencies already operate electronic-intelligence and maritime reconnaissance facilities on the Coco Islands - transferred by India in the 1950s to Burma, which then leased them to Beijing in 1994.</b> The main electronic-intelligence gathering station located on the Great Coco Island was completed in 1994 itself, with its radars, antenna towers and electronic equipment forming a comprehensive signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection facility.
These agencies have also positioned their personnel at several Burmese coastal points, including the Chinese-built harbours at Kyaukypu and Thilawa, and other vantage locations close both to India's eastern strategic assets and to the Strait of Malacca, through which 80 per cent of China's imported oil passes.
<b>Other moves by China include the building of container ports in Bangladesh at Chittagong (a desired military 'pearl' in Chinese eyes) and in Sri Lanka at Hambantota; an offer to fund a $20-billion canal that would cross Thailand's Kra Isthmus, thereby allowing ships to bypass the Strait of Malacca and permitting Beijing to set up port facilities there; and the construction of a railway from China through Cambodia to the sea</b>.
In addition to its creeping jurisdiction claims, Beijing is seeking to enhance its capability to project air and sea power into the South China Sea to help safeguard its strategic interests. It has upgraded a military airstrip on Woody Island and stepped up its presence in the South China Sea through oil-drilling platforms and ocean-survey ships.
To help protect China's growing energy assets in Central Asia<b>, the People's Liberation Army is setting up at least two offensively configured, armour-heavy mechanised corps modelled after the Soviet Operational Manoeuvre Groups of the 1980s</b>. Using Xinjiang as their springboard, they will 'become China's new strategic weapon' in keeping with the new doctrine to fight deep inside enemy territory and secure oilfields. By 2010, <b>China intends to put into service four to six nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines that it is building as part of the so-called 'Project 094'. </b>That would considerably narrow the Sino-Russian gap in nuclear forces. Russia today has only two nuclear subs on patrol.
In the years ahead,<b> it is very likely that Chinese nuclear subs would appear in the Indian Ocean. The issue, in fact, is not 'if' but 'when'</b>. As underlined by its plans to build a blue-water navy, Beijing clearly perceives the sea as a sphere of opportunity for extending its strategic, political and trade influence.
Japan and India can hardly ignore the military implications of China's energy-driven moves. By assiduously cultivating regimes of strategically located states, <b>Beijing has secured important naval or eavesdropping access, ostensibly for building maritime safety.</b> Once the Chinese-built naval base-cum-port at Gwadar is complete, the Chinese Navy, with its access in Burma, will be able to operate on both Indian flanks.
In addition, <b>Beijing's broad-based military-cooperation agreement with Dhaka has four apparent objectives: To bring that country into the Chinese strategic orbit; gain naval and commercial access to Chittagong; develop Burma-Bangladesh road links; and secure a doorway to India's vulnerable northeast</b>. The irony is that a power that tried hard, first to stop the birth of Bangladesh, and then to deny it UN membership, has now succeeded in presenting itself to that very country as a strategic friend and counterpoise to India.
If the Chinese navy is to be pre-empted from challenging India's dominant position in the Indian Ocean, the Indian navy will have to play a bigger role in the Strait of Malacca, a critical chokepoint for Chinese trade and energy lines. Indian naval policing of the Malacca Strait will not only vex China but also help keep direct Sino-Indian naval competition away from India's own backyard.
In the coming years, the voracious appetite for energy supplies in Asia is going to make the energy geopolitics murkier. Mercantilist efforts to assert control over oil and natural gas supplies and transport routes certainly risk fuelling tensions and discord.
<i>(Excerpted from the author's just-published book, Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan, HarperCollins) </i><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->