Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

China looks to eunuch admiral for inspiration

Sometimes in the most innocuous texts…

"These people are building ships like nobody's business," a military attache in Beijing said. "It's mind-boggling."

Construction has begun on about 70 military ships over the last 12 months, including a number of landing craft, and China is considering acquisition of another two Soviet-designed Sovremenny-class destroyers to complement the three it already owns, he added. More Kilo-class submarines are the subject of negotiations or already purchased, adding to the four bought several years ago.
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I would question if such fervor is solely for Taiwan. China's neighbors in the region must be reminded that once a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait, it will become a regional problem which will have serious economic, social and military consequences throughout Asia and the world.

China has given some clues as to their intentions.

China looks to a Ming admiral as fodder for a maritime revival. "The current enhancement of the Chinese presence in the region is very much parallel to 600 years ago when Zheng He cruised through the region and tried to set foot in neighboring territory to extend Chinese influence," military expert Andrew Yang said

"They were military missions with strategic aims," writes scholar Geoff Wade of the National University of Singapore. "The military aspect of these voyages needs underlining, in part because of the stress placed on these missions in much current scholarship as `voyages of friendship.'"

Zheng wanted to not only spread imperial Ming influence but to develop trade. China's communist overlords want to have a say in regional diplomacy and also protect sea lanes that carry the oil to fuel their economy and their burgeoning exports.

Almost all of China's energy imports flow through the Malacca Strait, a narrow sea lane vulnerable to pirate attack. China fears not just terrorists but the United States gaining control of the Malacca Strait.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said during a visit to Singapore that he hoped to have US troops fighting terrorism in Southeast Asia "pretty soon". His comments fuelled speculation that the United States wants to deploy US forces in the Strait of Malacca, the narrow and busy shipping lane straddled by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore that is seen as a likely terrorist target.
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China however is unlikely to join Japan in financing safety measures for the Strait but will do what it can to ensure security on the high seas.
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China's objectives regarding Taiwan include "capabilities to deter, delay, or disrupt third-party intervention in a cross-Strait military crisis." What China is saying is that should a conflict arise we will see one or more of our aircraft carriers and accompanying ships disappear.
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China and Iran have bought brand-new, top-of-the-line, Kilo-class diesel subs from Russia, and other nations also have been buying submarines.
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The ‘Onyx’ missile means that Russia or China can sink American aircraft carriers at will without ever having to escalate to nuclear warfare, which gives both countries a massive strategic advantage.
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The Chinese focus a great deal on aircraft carriers. It's a huge topic in China. There's even an Internet Website where people put up suggestions about good ways to attack American aircraft carriers.
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What we have is China’s reverence for a Ming admiral who sailed military missions with strategic aims, China’s building of ships like nobody's business, their strategy of intervention, their obsession with taking out American aircraft carriers, their top-of-the-line subs equipped with the Onyx, and their statement that China will ensure security on the high seas.

-Am

China looks to eunuch admiral for inspiration

LESS INNOCUOUS: The Chinese navy was never anything to write home about, at least since the Ming Dynasty, but now a Ming admiral is fodder for a maritime revival

REUTERS , SINGAPORE
Saturday, Jul 10, 2004,Page 5
China is celebrating the 15th century voyages of a Chinese eunuch admiral sailing as far west as the coast of Africa as evidence of its historical pursuit of peaceful relations with other countries and cultures.

Analysts say Zheng He's (鄭和) tactics were less innocuous than Chinese historians would portray and their martial nature mirrors more closely Beijing's expansion of its maritime presence today.

Festivities launched this week for the 600th anniversary of Zheng's voyages vaunt Beijing's benevolent diplomacy, remembering how the Muslim admiral led seven armadas through southeast Asia and beyond to spread Chinese influence from 1405 to 1433.

"Instead of occupying a single piece of land, building a fort or seizing treasure, Zheng He treated other countries with friendship," said Xu Zuyuan (徐祖遠), China's deputy minister of communications. "We think the legacy of Zheng He's seven voyages to the West is that a `peaceful rise' is the inevitable outcome of China's history."

Some China historians and maritime security experts take issue with Xu's assertion that Zheng's voyages bolstering the influence of the recently installed Ming dynasty were of a purely peaceful nature -- and not expansionist.

And a question mark hangs over the motives of Beijing's communist rulers as they slowly develop their coastal navy into a blue-water force capable of following in Zheng's wake and building relationships in southeast Asia.

"The current enhancement of the Chinese presence in the region is very much parallel to 600 years ago when Zheng He cruised through the region and tried to set foot in neighboring territory to extend Chinese influence," military expert Andrew Yang (楊念祖) said.

"The purpose is more or less identical -- to try to establish some kind of collaboration and cooperation conducive to China's long-term economic and national interests," said Yang, who is secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies.

The goals of the 15th century admiral and his successors today have common features.

"They were military missions with strategic aims," writes scholar Geoff Wade of the National University of Singapore. "The military aspect of these voyages needs underlining, in part because of the stress placed on these missions in much current scholarship as `voyages of friendship.'"

Zheng wanted to not only spread imperial Ming influence but to develop trade. China's communist overlords want to have a say in regional diplomacy and also protect sea lanes that carry the oil to fuel their economy and their burgeoning exports.

"China's energy flows are very, very critical and will become more so in the years to come," said Prakash Metaparti, a former Indian navy commander and a naval expert at the Center for Asian Studies at the University of Hong Kong.

Several southeast Asian neighbors, and likely the US as well, worry about spreading Chinese influence and whether Chinese naval vessels will one day acquire the capability to sail into waters where Zheng's 62 warships and thousands of sailors conquered ports and gathered tribute.

Beijing may, for now, be more worried about ensuring an uninterrupted flow of oil imports through the Malacca Strait from the Middle East. It needs to guarantee that the industrial machine that has become the world's workshop provides a steady stream of jobs, boosts incomes and keeps the Communist Party in power.

"This is a long-term development strategy: to secure energy supplies in the surrounding sea area," Yang said. "Securing their maritime interests is vital for their economic and future survival."

Almost all of China's energy imports flow through the Malacca Strait, a narrow sea lane vulnerable to pirate attack. Terrorists have yet to strike there but security experts fear they may.

Oil accounts for 22 percent of China's total energy mix and a third comes from imports. The world's second-largest oil consumer will see oil accounting for 31 percent of its energy mix by 2020.

To protect those imports and expand the range of its influence, China takes a two-pronged strategy by spending on naval modernization and signing trade deals with neighbors.

But by 2020, it may only just be able to command a world-class navy. While Chinese submarines can now ply up to 500 nautical miles off shore, above the waves its ships still sail in a range little beyond 300 to 500 nautical miles from the coast.

"They will not be able to project their power anywhere beyond their immediate coast areas for at least 10 years, and maybe not for 15 to 20 years," Metaparti said.
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