作者別: RG21管理者

                                              by Philippe Valdois

Space plays a critical role in information gathering and communications. Space programs not only offer possibilities for scientific and other forms of cooperation but also could in addition, as history have revealed, become a catalyst for tremendous improvements in the relations between various countries. They also present risks, in particular weaponing of space and a possible new arm race. I will try here to offer a subjective analysis, focusing on the identification of various risks and offering some suggestions for improvement, looking at history, realities and perception, and the character of various actors implicated in decision-making.

It is not my purpose here to list all the landmarks and accomplishments of China and Japan in that field over the past 50 years or so. However, to start on a positive note, it should be noted that both countries have played a leadership role in recent years promoting regional cooperation, for example with the establishment in 1993 by Japan of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum, APRSAF, the “Sentinel-Asia (Asian supervisors)” project in 2006 and the Space Application for Environment (SAFE) project in 2008. In China, we should mention the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) inaugurated in 2005, with a growing number of cooperation projects http://www.apsco.int/program.asp  . Those programs can be seen as similar to the European Space Agency efforts to involve smaller countries which could not afford it by themselves, offering them the possibility to participate in large scale programs and scientific experiments. I had a chance to attend the First International Space Exploration Symposium in Japan, in October 2012 and chat with Dr. Alain Dupas who talked about the pooling of resources http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/26535690 – Dr. Dupas presentation starts at 1:20:10). It was an opportunity to see how European space programs differed from US ones.

Those major initiatives put those countries at the center of any discussion on the future of space programs in the region, although we should not forget the role played by the U.S. as major partner of Japan and as a catalyst of many decisions taken by Japan.

To write this essay, I have found James Clay Moltz’s Asia’s Space Race, National Motivations, Regional rivalries and International Risk,  (Columbia University Press, 2012,) extremely valuable to understand the history and context of national space programs in the region, including their military, scientific and commercial aspects.

Political changes in Japan
Many events are shaping new policies regarding space efforts in Asia, as we enter the last trimester of 2014.

“Normalcy” has been one word associated by the medias with Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s vision for his country and interpreted in part by his government as a shift towards stronger defense capabilities. This includes Japan’s space program.

In August 2014, news came out that Japan was planning to launch a military space force to protect communications and reconnaissance satellites from debris orbiting the Earth. Personnel from the Air Self-Defense Force would acquire radar and telescope facilities to monitor space debris. Until 2008, Japan space mandate excluded military space activities and the country relied heavily on information shared by the US, but the attention became focused on space and national security with North Korea’s launch of a Taepodong 1 rocket in 1998 over the Japanese Archipelago.

In 1969, the National Space Development Agency was created to develop civil space activities and to represent Japan in its interaction with foreign space agencies, but Japan started receiving liquid-fuel rocket technology from the United States, and on the same year, the Parliament, fearing this technology could be used to develop ballistic missiles, adopted a resolution requiring that the space program be conducted only for civilian purposes.

To comply with the 1969 resolution the construction of a multipurpose satellite for Earth-observation operated by civilians, but able to be used for military purposes, was suggested and in March 2003, the first two of a series of satellites to constitute the Information Gathering Satellite (IGS) were launched.

In October 2003, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi merged the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) with NASDA (National Space Development Agency) into the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) but following some technical failures a push for more reforms was to take place with the so-called Kawamura initiative. The Liberal Democratic Party thought too much emphasis had been put on scientific programs and not enough on user-oriented space applications. It also wanted to streamline the administration and free the country from the limitations of the 1969 resolution. Thus, in May 2008 the Diet adopted the Basic Space Law, allowing military uses of space.

In Chapter 2 Section 4 Outer Space and Security of its White Paper: Defense of Japan 2014 http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/2014.html Japan Ministry of Defense mentions China only-as a country, by name-in section 1 dedicated to its own program, referring to the January 2007 Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test. It mentions the same test in section 4 (China) where it also says “the country is developing equipment that interferes with satellites capable of using lasers”.

Japan considers as key threats North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, but also Chinese growing military activities in South and East China seas. Improving its reconnaissance capability is vital. Japan is also keen on developing its missile defense system and needs reliable systems to communicate with its ships and troops deployed overseas (on UN missions, for example).

Already, after the failed missile test by North Korea in April 2009, voices were heard calling for a better cooperation with the United States against any threat to either country. Since any preventive action would include spy satellites, we might see how space policy might have been a factor in the Abe government’s decision to call for a different interpretation of the Constitution legalizing the right to collective self-defense and the nomination of Akinori Eto as Minister of Defense and Minister in charge of Security Legislation in early September 2014.

On the non-military side, Japan has since 2006 worked on a regional disaster-management system called Sentinel Asia, mentioned in the introduction. The Joint Project team included participants from Australia, Bangladesh, South Korea, People’s Republic of China, etc. JAXA is seen as being encouraged to play a somewhat similar role to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as part of a soft-power strategy, with launch access, satellites and training being provided to Asian countries as Official Development Aid.

On the military side, a similar strategy has been adopted, in particular through cooperation with the United States but also with India, South Korea and other Pacific countries. This was also the conclusion of James Clay Moltz. His Asia’s Space Race, National Motivations, Regional rivalries and International Risk was published two years ago, but his analysis was recently confirmed on August 31^st, 2014, as a result of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visit to Japan, with the elevation of bilateral ties to Special Strategic Partnership and the removal of six of India’s space and defense-related entities from its negative list known as Foreign End User List (see Asian Tribune, “We will help you”, Abe tells Modi, ties elevated to Special Strategic Partnership, Malladi Rama Rao, New Delhi, 02 September 2014) http://www.asiantribune.com/node/85321

There is a lack of transparency in certain aspects of the programs of both China, and Japan, which has failed in the past to list the orbital parameters of some of its IGS satellites, in violation of a UN Convention, arguing that other countries did the same. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/06/15/national/japans-spy-satellites-are-an-open-secret/#.VAwc9kum3rA

This did not later prevent Japan in 2007, when Shinzo Abe, was first in power, to be the only country to categorize the Chinese anti-satellite test (ASAT) as a “violation” of Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty.

China, the new space power

Beijing has often been criticized for its lack of transparency. One example was in January 2007 when the kinetic ASAT test we just mentioned was followed by a denial from China’s Foreign Ministry, then by attempts to justify what amounted to a radical shift from the policy of opposing weapons in space, thus damaging China’s reputation in the United Nations. I see many reasons to such criticism. Some are legitimate, and some have to do with perception. For example, on one hand, the public sees or imagines power in China as being highly centralized and authoritarian, but on the other hand, most Western specialists see it as fragmented with different institutions vying for control of a particular program. As I previously mentioned I will not paint a detailed history of China’s space programs but the list of the various entities involved show this pattern has existed for decades.

The difficulty to know who controls what and how it will affect the direction of space decision-making makes in fact other regional powers uneasy. The decision in 1993 to create the China National Space Administration (CNSA), presented as the equivalent of the NASA, while in fact most space research, production, etc., was the realm of the defense industry, was not conducive to trust. The creation of the powerful China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) came later in 1999 and clarified the situation. With its myriads of subordinate entities it could be seen as a group of subcontractors, like those working with other space agencies like NASA, but here under the control of the State. But the fragmentation of power in addition to leaving too much space for speculations has also been cause for legitimate concern. In April 2006 CNSA Vice Administrator Luo Ge visited the United States but when NASA Administrator Michael Griffin reciprocated he was denied access to the flight operations center and other facilities he wished to visit. Since these were military controlled, the refusal might have been the product of an internal dispute between the NCSA and the People Liberation Army (PLA).

The emergence of China as a military space actor is relatively recent since it started in the 1990s, when China quickly came to understand the importance of advance reconnaissance and communications satellites in military operations, in particular when looking at how modern, large scale military operations were conducted during the Gulf War. It is however too early to consider China as really engaged in an arm race. The U.S. greatly dominates the space scene in terms of number of satellites and experience and this dominance makes also the US fear that this dominance makes them particularly vulnerable, encouraging them to always stay one step ahead.

It is true that the US and Japan relying more on space-base technologies should have more to loose than China if a tit-for-tat situation involving the mutual disabling of satellites was to happen, but the lack of a major military ally and the sheer number of military assets deployed by the U.S. would precipitate a defeat for China. Things could change however if China developed the necessary technology to make possible the deployment of a great number of micro-satellites. Also, China now has to deal with the determination of countries like India to develop military space operations, the launch by Japan of a military space force, and the recent partnership agreement between Japan and India. I do not see improved Chinese militaries capacities as enough to force the U.S. and its allies to envision a “space Pearl Harbor” against the United States, the slowing down of the Chinese economic growth and the need to invest in domestic infrastructure would preclude it. A bloated military budget with strategic challenges developing in Europe and in the Middle East for the U.S.; the financial aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the enormous debt in Japan; these are factors putting those countries in a situation where a new arm race would be financially catastrophic and conducive to more mistrust.  I will come back later on the origin, significance and implications of this “space Peal Harbor quote.

We already mentioned transparency. Another problem is the reluctance on the part of China to expose its scientific or technological shortcomings in some particular fields. When it should be proud of its achievements in human spaceflight, China will go to great lengths to dissimulate failures. It is a cultural problem and, as with other defense matters, it leaves the observer scratching his head, wondering if there are not military secrets dissimulated behind this wall of silence and assuming the worst-case scenario. To learn about one’s own shortcomings and improve them necessitates a measure of realism, which in this particular case necessitates in turn the ability to expose those shortcomings and candidly ask for support. Again, history has shown China benefiting from such approach. In fact at the JAXA Tokyo symposium I mentioned in the introduction, the Secretary General of the International Academy of Astronautics IAA – in Chinese said that China had unfortunately declined an invitation, to what was to be a successful event with informal exchanges between major industry players, adding China would always be welcomed!

However, as we have seen with Japan and its Sentinel Asia project, China has also a history of collaborating with other countries’ space agencies, like NASA from 1980s to the late 1990s, with ESA since the late 1980s, with Russia, starting in 1989 and in the 1950s with the Soviet Union, and with countries in the developing world. In fact, if China relied heavily on the Soviet Union in the 1950s for its missiles technology, it greatly benefited and learned from the exchanges with the United States following the Richard Nixon trip to China in 1972.

Twenty years later, two Chinese astronauts were to fly aboard the U.S. space shuttle. This cooperation encouraged in fact China to integrate the world space community, with 1988 being a turning point, when President Reagan allowed U.S.-made satellites to be launched on Chinese rockets and China joined two important space related international conventions. Those events, when compared to what followed later at the end of the 1990s, show the benefit of exchanges for maintaining peace and goodwill. They also help us understand how political changes in the United States in particular helped destroy this goodwill.

The Clinton administration started restricting space technology exchanges and years of mistrust followed, fueled by strong military and conservative politicians both in the U.S. and in China. Even after the November 2009 summit meeting in Beijing of U.S. President Obama with President Hu Jintao, which concluded with a joint statement including a call for expanding discussions on space science cooperation, scientific cooperation was halted by Republican Representative Frank Wolf http://news.sciencemag.org/technology/2011/04/spending-bill-prohibits-u.s.-china-collaborations

However, cooperation continued and is still growing with other countries, in particular since the 1980s with European countries. This might be a reason why China decided to adopt European instead of U.S. Technology for its mobile phone network!

Another conservative “villain” in the story would be Donald Rumsfeld. I used previously his own words: “Space Pearl Harbor”, to describe what amounted to a call for a new arm race. I would make mine the conclusions of Michael Krepon in his article Lost in Space: the Misguided Drive Toward Antisatellite Weapons, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2001 http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/57025/michael-krepon/lost-in-space-the-misguided-drive-toward-antisatellite-weapons

In addition, we sometimes hear about China’ plans to build its own space station and many in the public see this as a non-cooperative attitude on the part of Beijing, but what few people in the public recognize is that as a result of the publication of the controversial Cox Report in May 1999 http://www.house.gov/coxreport/ . China was denied access to the ISS.

All the previous events illustrate my point, regarding the toxicity of using as reference the past to deal with modern challenges. On the opposite, Deng Xiaoping, who studied and worked in France where he also met Zhou Enlai, another advocate for peaceful coexistence with the West who initiated some of Deng Xiaoping reforms, comes out as a very different type of leader whose policies for and his longing of promoting peace, cooperation, and prosperity helped raise the standard of living of hundred of millions of Chinese, even if we take into account a parallel rise in revenue inequalities. It is worth mentioning he was an architect of the emergence of China as a major space player.

Space applications and in particular communication satellites are also vital in China for maintaining domestic order. They not only help broadcast information but also authorize the transfer of data for the printing of national newspapers for example. In addition, the human spaceflight program and the recent lunar landing are showcasing to the Chinese people the capacity of the Communist Party to put China in a central position on the world stage and the technological benefits space programs under its direction can bring to them.

In strategic terms China, as we have seen, has no major ally at a time when alliances are developing in the region. It is not only facing Japan and India, but also the possibility of a conflict, which might involve the U.S., not only as a result of the future reinterpretation of Japan Constitution and the exercise of the right to collective self-defense, but also over Taiwan and disputed islands in South and East China seas. This in turn puts China on the defensive, fueling the need for Beijing to build a competitive hedge but more importantly to become an active participant and promoter of international treaties. I think positive results in terms of cooperation can only be obtained if the secrecy and reluctance on the part of the PLA to engage in military-to-military discussions are but the product of uncertainty and unpreparedness and are not rooted in mistrust going back maybe to the Opium Wars and a time that no man alive now has known. Even if mistrust has been born from events having happened less than a century ago, as was the case when a great scientist, Dr. Qian Xuesen, was deported by the United States in 1955 (see The Two Lives of Qian Xuesen by Evan Osnos, in The New Yorker, November 3, 2009 http://www.newyorker.com/news/evan-osnos/the-two-lives-of-qian-xuesen the page needs to be turned. Let us remember that this event took place in the McCarthy-era, a time when the press and the public blindly followed a one-man crusade before, a few short years later, making their mea culpa. Times like this happen in history when small men engaged in a personal crusade would be later forgotten if not for their association with controversial reports or a series of appearances in the media. Leaders should not follow this track.

The Obama administration has shown a willingness to engage in a fruitful dialogue as when the U.S. invited four ships from China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to the Rim of the Pacific 2014 exercise in July 2014 http://news.usni.org/2014/07/02/china-invited-back-future-rimpac-exercises this should be one more reason for Asia-Pacific countries to cooperate more on space programs. Hurdles coming from individual hardline politicians will be removed over the years and opportunities should be used anytime they happen. The history of Chinese space program demonstrates it and also the fact that the nationalist flavor of success always gave place to pride in humanity’s accomplishments in general, when human and technological success is attained in space.

Another way to improve the dialogue, especially since as we have seen there is a thin line between civil and military space programs, is to focus on civil space cooperation between NASA, JAXA and NCSA. It would help build confidence on both sides.

It is also vital to educate the public regarding the complexity of the issues related to the economic, political and military components of space programs in Asia. Traditional geostrategic thinking, apart from dealing with ground bases, for example, shows its obsolescence when dealing with a borderless tridimensional environment such as space and might in fact exacerbate mistrust and tensions.

Finally, The question of debris in space is a major problem, which has to be addressed through international cooperation since it is a common threat. But this threat can also be used as a justification for greater monitoring of foreign satellites opening the way to the development of more ASTs.

Security in space, be it against debris or weapons, will be a vital interest for the more than 60 countries having satellites deployed in space, but it should not be a reason for pushing for militarization of space. However, the fact that those weapons can now be used or discussed in a non-military context, will assure their continuous development and will contribute to the blurring between commercial and military use of space, and if space race there is, we should be on the lookout for keywords such as “debris” and “microsatellites” since they will also play a growing dual purpose, along with the development of non-kinetic AST such as lasers.

Space is an open space without borders, which enables us to view Earth as a shared system. This provides us with an opportunity to change the dynamics in the Asian region and engage into or multiply discussions over various topics, including disaster prevention and environmental monitoring. The ESA offers good examples of multidisciplinary cooperation.

We have seen a growing interdependency since the end of the Cold War between Russia and various countries including the United States for the supply of vehicles to transport its astronauts to the ISS, but also of rocket components. In return, Russia is dependent on those exportations. It is even true for Ukrainian commercial rockets that heavily depend on Russian components.

For all these reasons, space cooperation might not only be a dream but also a necessity, and the beginning of a real Asian community might also well be the indirect product of space cooperation.  

 

 

 

                                                             by Bill Lee

Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack…The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret!

— Dr. Strangeglove, 1964

 

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has finally moved very near to realizing his goal of getting approval for the exercise of the right of collective self-defense (CSD); meanwhile, China is continuing its relentless buildup of its armed forces, particularly with regard to aircraft carriers and aircraft. With North Korea thrown into the mix and heightened disputes pitting China against Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea, the course seems set for a sharp escalation of the arms race in East Asia. No one of course knows where this will precisely lead, but at least a Cold War-like stand-off between the United States, Japan, Australia, and other allies in the Asia-Pacific region and China and a Ukraine-minded Russia is clearly looming, with increasingly likely possibilities that armed clashes could occur at any time. The adherents of CSD in Japan claim that CSD will serve to “deter” China; at the same time, China also invokes the concept of deterrence to justify its arms buildup. But is “deterrence” still a valid concept, one that can be relied upon to preserve peace? This paper will examine the slide toward CSD in Japan, the current situation of China’s defense deterrence, and the prospects for China’s aircraft carriers providing the deterrence to prevent war in the region.

 

Dreams into Nightmares

 

As I pointed out in a previous paper (“Becoming Normal – Japan’s Rising Militarism,” October 27, 2013), the Abe Cabinet carefully paved the way toward approval of collective self-defense by creating a National Security Agency, passing a National Secrets Act, revising Japan’s National Defense Program Guidelines, bypassing the Cabinet Legislation Bureau, and so on. In a Cabinet decision on July 1, 2014, the Abe Cabinet authorized the exercise of CSD. The opponents of CSD had plenty of ammunition with which to fire back at the decision. Abe et al claimed that the main reason CSD was necessary was because the “security environment around Japan had changed.” The countries most responsible for precipitating this change are, presumably, North Korea and China. But 20 years have passed since the Agreed Framework was signed to end the DPRK’s nuclear program, and although of course North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests of varying success and continues to test launch its missiles, the Kim Jong Un regime has been keeping a relatively low profile – perhaps test-firing missiles to grab a few meager headlines. Indeed the Abe administration has stepped up its overtures to North Korea to resolve the abduction issue, belying its claim that the DPRK is a probable imminent threat. China has certainly been building up its military capability within the last several years, tightening the security environment, but it was of course Japan’s nationalization of the Senkaku Islands that sparked the current row over the islands. And even dimmer wits in the Abe administration cannot fail to see that approving CSD will only increase tensions in the region, this rationale of a changed security environment ironically only serving to hastening the spiraling of tensions as China and then Japan successively react to the other’s moves.

 

Another objection against the Abe administration’s rationale for CSD is that the scenarios upon which the administration and Abe’s handpicked panel of “experts” considering CSD based their justification for CSD were unrealistic, such as the possibility North Korea would launch a missile strike against the United States or attack a US naval vessel on the high seas. Even a former fleet commander-in-chief of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, Yoji Koda, wrote in Bungei Shunju that the scenarios are effectively meaningless because each scenario considers only the initial option, while in reality, the initial scenario option is never that clear – is North Korea firing at a US vessel or another vessel nearby? – and the subsequent responses and counter-responses were never considered by Abe’s civilian “experts.”

 

But the greatest objections to CSD came in reaction to the way CSD was approved – through a Cabinet decision that bypassed all democratic processes.　As is well-known by now, amending the Japanese Constitution requires approval by a two-thirds’ majority in both chambers of the Diet, and then a simple majority in a national referendum. Abe rather breathtakingly bypassed all that by having his Cabinet simply declare an effective change in the Constitution. It has been pointed out that Abe has no understanding of the function of the Constitution and the prime minister’s subordinate relationship to it. Abe’s concept of the function of a national leader is grounded in a very Confucian mindset in which the leader is a sovereign who is “responsible for the Japanese people” (Abe’s words). What Abe forgets, or does not understand, is that he is responsible for protecting the Japanese people in accordance with the nation’s laws. The procedural waters are often intentionally muddied in Japan, and a good example is the Japanese legal system, which is based on a merging of the Napoleonic Code (think the labyrinthine Kamakura bakufu edicts) and English Common Law, the basis for the current Constitution. In the United States, for instance, the Supreme Court decides the constitutionality of laws, but in Japan, while the Japanese Supreme Court should also assume that prerogative, in fact it is the Cabinet Legislation Bureau (CLB) that does so. But the problem is the CLB has no constitutional authority to render final judgments on constitutionality; its power resides in custom.

 

This kind of discussion leads inevitably to the question of whether Japan is really a democracy or not. It can be argued that the Japanese Supreme Court has been left feckless and conservative intentionally by appointing judges at late ages who have passed through the judicial ranks by hewing to an authorized line. Critics of the political system point to the large number of hereditary lawmakers and the disparities in voting power. But what does this have to do with CSD? Potentially a great deal. As will be discussed in more detail later, deterrence depends on how the other side views your capability and likelihood of using military force. For China, the alarming aspect of Japan’s move toward exercising the right of CSD is not Japan’s military capability per se but the ease with which Japan could apply it. China should be wary that Japan, under a crypto-tyrannical leader like Abe, could quickly shed its democratic skin and engage in military action by diktat. Still fresh in mind is Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso’s reported comment that the Nazis were able to deftly change the Weimer Constitution without anyone really noticing, and then suggesting, “Why don’t we learn from their tactics?” It appears that Abe followed Aso’s Nazi-inspired advice.

 

But little in Japan is completely black and white, and, like its population, there is a great deal of gray. Public opinion was unexpectedly quite critical of Abe’s railroading of approval for the exercise of CSD, with, according to the opinion polls, up to a strong majority against the administration’s action. In July the LDP suffered a turnaround setback in a bell-weather gubernatorial election, likely, in part, because of the reinterpretation of CSD. Abe was apparently spooked enough by the groundswell of opposition to put off submitting CSD-related legislation to the Diet until next year, rather than in the fall, as he had originally planned. (As an interesting sidebar to illustrate Abe’s political adroitness, Abe has decided to create a new ministerial post to shepherd the CSD-related bills through the Diet. He wants LDP Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba to take the post, first, because Ishiba is a supposed expert on defense issues, and, second, since Ishiba is Abe’s chief rival for control of the party, by having Ishiba take up a Cabinet post, he will be able to neutralize Ishiba. Ishiba is in a quandary: if he accepts the post, he could lose his chance to become prime minister; if he refuses, he can be accused of putting self-interest above the interests of the country, particularly since he proclaims himself to be such an expert on security matters and would, presumably, be the ideal person to take the post.) The upshot of all this is that while Abe could initially usurp the laws of the land to try to carry out a militaristic venture, the opposition — in other words, democracy — in Japan might be strong enough to stop him.

 

The United States of course backs Japan’s exercise of CSD as there are absolutely no downsides for the US. America wants Japan to exercise CSD because: 1) it reduces the military and financial burden on the US, 2) integrates Japan more fully and effectively into security missions, and 3) (in the minds of some) prevents Japan from being too independent militarily. It has been charged that the United States has been after Japan to exercise CSD like a “dog barking after a car but with no idea what to do when it catches it.” However, the US military presumably wants the SDF for minesweeping operations, reconnaissance and surveillance, and ballistic missile defense. The US government also strongly supported the Abe administration’s state secrets legislation, eager to prevent the further leakage of US military secrets. The upcoming formal review of the Japan-US defense cooperation guidelines before the end of the year was also one of the factors leading the Abe administration to hurry through with the Cabinet decision approving CSD. If there was any doubt about the US position towards Japan’s exercise of CSD, it was completely dispelled when US Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy, a staunch liberal but of course a representative of the US government, came out with a “statement of support for collective self-defense.”

 

Great Wall of China

 

If it was not very effective militarily, China’s Great Wall was at least a metaphorical indicator of China’s intense desire to keep out invading barbarians. But China’s new Great Wall — the Western-termed Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy — is a very formidable and effective deterrent against outside threats, particularly from the United States. I do not know which genius Chinese general or military theorist put together this comprehensive “counter-intervention” strategy, but it seems apparent that China closely studied America’s successes in Desert Storm and NATO’s operations in the Balkans and realized that stopping the projection of air power was crucial for any defense of its homeland.

 

China’s A2/AD strategy is centered on five platforms: 1) land-attack missile systems, 2) anti-ship missile systems, 3) submarines, 4) air defense systems, and 5) cyber-attacks. They are all pretty much concerned with stopping air attacks. In Desert Storm, the Chinese realized how easy it was for the US military to fly in assets to staging areas next to Iraq for the invasion. The crucial point is to prevent an enemy from easy access to, and freedom of action in areas near, China. China now has the short- and medium-range ballistic missiles able to attack Okinawa and even Guam. In a conflict, if China took out US and Japanese military bases in Okinawa, the US military would be forced to stage operations from Guam, the distance from China causing enormous logistical and operational problems. China’s anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM), particularly its DF-21D ASBM, and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM) could sink US naval vessels, including its aircraft carriers. Chinese submarines, once derided for being so noisy, have become much more sophisticated, with their air independent propulsion systems, and the incident in 2006 when a PLAN submarine stalked a US aircraft carrier group and then surfaced within firing range without being detected shows how advanced China’s submarines have become. China’s surface-to-air missiles (SAM) and air force make up an effective integrated air defense system (IADS) that could prevent US air superiority, something the US military has almost taken for granted everywhere else in the world. China’s fifth-generation prototype fighters, the Chengdu J-20 and the Shenyang J-31, have been making successful test flights and could repel US fifth-generation fighters from Chinese airspace. Disrupting communications is also crucial in modern warfare, and China’s cyber-attack capabilities are well-known. China’s cyber-attacks against US government networks are a matter of record, and China demonstrated that it could shoot down a satellite in 2007. China’s A2/AD strategy has the capability not only to deter and repel an invasion but also to push back the US military further out into the Pacific and away from Asia because its aircraft carriers are now more vulnerable, thus reducing the US presence in Asia (note the foundering US “pivot to Asia”).

 

Big Boys

 

Despite the highly deterrent-effective capability of A2/AD, why then is China diverting precious resources to a dubious symbol of force projection: aircraft carriers?

 

In January this year, Wang Min, the Communist Party chief of Liaoning Province made the first “official” announcement at a people’s congress meeting that China had started construction of its first indigenous aircraft carrier in Dalian (some reports say Wang said two carriers are being constructed there) and that China would have four aircraft carriers in the future. Considering his senior position in the party, Wang Min’s statements have credibility. China of course already has its well-reported Liaoning aircraft carrier, even toured by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. The tour was probably less an attempt at transparency on the Chinese side than a recognition that, to paraphrase Dr. Strangeglove: What good is a doomsday machine if no one knows you have it?

 

Plugged-in news portals in Hong Kong and elsewhere report that China has already started construction of two Type 001A carriers at the Dalian shipyard and one Type 002 carrier at the Jiangnan shipyard on Changxing Island in Shanghai. Photographs have already appeared on the Internet of what appears to be the aircraft carrier under construction at the Jiangnan shipyard. Though bigger, the Type 001A carriers are modeled after the Liaoning. However, the most important index for assessing a carrier’s firepower is the number of sorties it can launch. The sortie rate for US Nimitz-class carriers is 160 aircraft per day. The most optimistic sortie estimates for the Liaoning put the rate at around a third of that, 55 sorties per day. The main reason China is modeling its first domestically produced carriers after the Liaoning is because, despite the Liaoning‘s deficiencies, since China already has experience refitting the Liaoning, it should be easier and faster to construct similar carriers. But the Type 001A carriers will also be remodeled to facilitate the faster movement of fighters from the hangar to the flight deck and to incorporate the possible use of catapults for take-offs. These and other changes should increase the sortie rate from the Liaoning‘s 54 to 100 or so aircraft per day.

 

The Type 002 carrier will reportedly be commissioned in 2019, one year after the Type 001 carriers. It will apparently have a flat, angled deck, rather than a ski jump-type deck, catapults, greater size, more sophisticated weapons systems, and the potential to be nuclear-powered. A nuclear-powered carrier would be important for China because, unlike the United States, China does not have naval bases around the world, so a nuclear carrier would not have refueling restrictions. The Type 002 carrier should also be able to carry China’s new J-31 stealth aircraft. Though roughly similar to Kitty Hawk-class carriers in tonnage, the Type 002 should significantly surpass them in firepower, but still be behind Nimitz-class carriers.

 

Aircraft carriers do not travel alone of course, and China has rushed to build a range of submarines, missile destroyers, cruiser escorts, frigates, corvettes, and supply ships to make up carrier strike groups.

 

Sitting Ducks

 

The question is why China wants to spend so much money for aircraft carriers. Many commentators suggest that it was the “aircraft carrier shock” China received when the United States sent two carriers to the Taiwan Strait during the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. Spooked by that show of intimidating force, China soon accelerated its military buildup.

 

Of course aircraft carriers have an irresistible allure for military and state leaders. They are an ultimate symbol of threat projection, military power, and state might; they have, to put it crudely, a phallic presence. But like all such psychosexual projections, they can easily become dysfunctional, considering all the lost time needed for training and dry-docking maintenance, repairs, overhauls, etc., which takes them away from active service.

 

I believe there are three major reasons why China’s expansion of its aircraft carrier fleet is unnecessary.

 

1) Endless catch-up — At present, the total firepower of the Liaoning just surpasses that of the US Midway-class carriers, which have already been mothballed. Although China appears to be building a Type 002 possibly nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, it will still have less firepower than a current Nimitz-class carrier and be far behind the Ford-class supercarriers, which will have 50% to 70% greater firepower than the Nimitz-class carriers and are scheduled to be in continuous construction up until 2058. China has made tremendous strides with its aircraft and missile weapon systems, its fifth-generation stealth fighters being a serious threat to similar-class US fighters. But aircraft carriers are a very complex and massive integration of networks and systems, and China will likely not be able to close the gap with the United States as readily as it did with stealth fighters, chiefly because of America’s huge head start. The risk for China is that it will throw its money and resources into a bottomless pit to try to catch up, a fruitless arms race that could cost China $9 billion for one carrier (the newest US carrier will cost $13 billion) — about the amount Japan spends for its entire Official Development Assistance (ODA) outlays in one year — and force it to spend millions of dollars per day to operate a single carrier strike force. As mentioned above, China already has a very strong foundation for its Anti-Access/Area Denial defense, so its defensive needs are already well-served.

 

2) Chasing pirates? — Aside from the prestige involved, what will China do with an aircraft carrier-centered blue-water navy? Unlike the United States, which has commitments around the world, China has no collective self-defense obligations with any other countries, except possibly North Korea. It needs to play no role as a global policeman. In the late 1970s the United States tried to cut spending sharply for aircraft carriers, but the Iran crisis required carrier battle group deployments in the Middle East, and spending cuts were eased. The current ISIS attacks into Iraq highlight the need, from the Western perspective, for carrier deployments to launch airstrikes against extreme Islamist forces. But where does China stand in these global crises? The most plausible reason for China to have aircraft carriers is to protect its energy lifeline of oil tankers going to and from the Middle East. But if this lifeline were threatened, so would that of other countries; China could ally with those countries, including the United States, to protect these maritime transport corridors. And where would these threats come from? From Somali pirates? Sending an aircraft carrier strike group to deal with a bunch of pirates seems a bit of overkill. It would be much cheaper just to bribe them not to attack your ships. If key sea lanes were mined, China could ironically team up with Japan, as it has in the Gulf of Aden, for demining operations, since both countries depend on the narrow passageway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden for their energy shipments. A wonderful irony would arise if Japan could send its minesweepers to the region, as Prime Minister Abe wants to do through the exercise of the right of CSD, to rescue the energy lifelines of both Japan and China. Elsewhere in the world, China would probably want to protect the countries where it has invested the most. According to CNBC, the top three countries for China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) are (1) Hong Kong, (2) the Cayman Islands, and (3) the British Virgin Islands. It is hard to see China sending aircraft carriers into Victoria Harbour to quell local dissidents, or to the Cayman Islands to protect the bank accounts of its rich.

 

3) On the road to war — Aside from nuclear weapons themselves, aircraft carriers can be called the highest expression of deterrence because (1) they are very intimidating threat projection, and (2) if they are attacked, the attacking side can expect a full retaliation. It is easy to understand the second reason. Aircraft carriers are so expensive and, with 5,000-6,000 people on board, they are “cities on the sea”; losing one would necessitate a full-scale retaliation.  Chinese military sources say that the new aircraft carriers currently under construction will be deployed at naval bases in Hainan Province, which faces the South China Sea. Thus the most immediate utilization of the carriers would be to bolster China’s military activities in the South China Sea against Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries with which it has territorial disputes, and also in the East China Sea against Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. This would be extremely provocative and be like throwing a match in a tinderbox. As mentioned above, aircraft carriers have a highly deterrent effect, but this deterrence can quickly and dramatically diminish because in this day and age of very sophisticated submarine and anti-ship ballistic missile capabilities, aircraft carriers are akin to the proverbial sitting duck. If China deployed an aircraft carrier to the East China Sea and tensions escalated to the point where the carrier used its firepower, it would be vulnerable to US or Japanese anti-ship missiles from submarines or land. If the Chinese carrier were sunk or badly damaged, China would retaliate in strength and the outcome would be the unthinkable: full-scale war.

 

Conclusion

 

Both Japan and China justify the bolstering of their military capabilities as necessary for “deterrence.” Under the Abe administration’s explanations, it is difficult to see how Japan’s exercise of collective self-defense per se could present much of a military threat to China, but the disguised nature of those explanations and the Abe Cabinet’s ignoring of democratic processes should alarm China. At the same time, it is difficult to see what lasting deterrence Chinese aircraft carriers will provide to bolster China’s already formidable and effective A2/AD defensive strategy and, indeed, what their actual function will be. In the name of “deterrence,” both sides are reinforcing and ramping up tensions that could easily spiral into full-scale conflict.