Bloomberg News
China Seeks Great Power Status After Centuries of Sea Retreat
A replica of the ship sailed by Zheng He in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China. Source: China Photos/Getty Images
Admiral Zheng He is everywhere in China these days, even though he died almost 600 years ago. The government is promoting him to remind its people -- and Asia -- that China’s destiny is to be a great naval power.
Almost a century before Christopher Columbus discovered America, Zheng in 1405 embarked on a series of voyages with ships of unrivaled size and technical prowess, reaching as far as India and Africa.
The expeditions are in the spotlight in official comments and state media as China lays claim to about 90 percent of the South China Sea and President Xi Jinping seeks to revive China’s maritime pride. In doing so he risks setting up confrontations with Southeast Asian neighbors and the U.S., whose navy has patrolled the region since World War II. Geopolitical dominance of the South China Sea would give China control of one of the world’s most economically and politically strategic areas.
“The Chinese believe they have the right to be a great power,” said Richard Bitzinger, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “What we are seeing is a hardening of China’s stance about its place in the world.”
Stretching from Taiwan toward Singapore, about half of the world’s merchant tonnage flows through the region, carrying about $5.3 trillion of goods each year, from iron ore and oil to computers and children’s toys. Some 13 million barrels of oil a day transited the Straits of Malacca in 2011, about one third of global oil shipments. The sea lanes currently lack a dominant overseer, with the U.S., China and neighboring nations all having a presence.
Overlapping Claims
China’s claim is based on a 1947 map, with a more recent version following a line of nine dashes shaped like a cow’s tongue, looping down to a point about 1,800 kilometers (1,119 miles) south from the coast of Hainan island. The area overlaps claims from Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan. In the adjacent East China Sea, China contests islands administered by Japan.
The ambitions of China’s leaders don’t stop at the nine-dash line.
“China’s ultimate long-term goal is to obtain parity with U.S. naval capacity in the Pacific,” said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, adjunct professor at the Centre for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “This is a long-term proposition. At this stage the Chinese understand they don’t have the capacity to take on the U.S. head-on.”
‘Chinese DNA’
Sensing the U.S. is distracted by foreign policy challenges in the Middle East and Ukraine, China has been ratcheting up pressure on its neighbors, Lam said. It seized control of the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012 as Chinese ships “shooed away” their rivals.
China in early May towed a $1 billion oil exploration rig into contested waters near the Paracel Islands off Vietnam, sparking skirmishes between coast guard vessels, the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat and anti-Chinese demonstrations. In an attempt to soothe tensions, Premier Li Keqiang said June 18 that “expansion is not in the Chinese DNA” and that talks can ensure stability in the region.
“The charm rhetoric is still there but the actions speak louder than words and unfortunately the actions are scaring the hell out of Southeast Asia,” said Ernest Bower, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It looks to Southeast Asia like China has taken off the gloves,” he said via a podcast on June 11 as CSIS released its report “Decoding China’s Emerging ‘Great Power’ Strategy in Asia.”
‘Great Rejuvenation’
China is backing its assertiveness with a campaign of historical justification based on Zheng’s voyages.
The admiral’s first fleet numbered more than 255 vessels and carried 27,000 crew, mostly soldiers. Flanked by his flotilla, Zheng proclaimed China’s glory and affirmed “China’s dominant geopolitical standing in the China Seas and Indian Ocean,” according to the Hong Kong Maritime Museum.
The project ended in 1433, after Zheng died and a new emperor bristled at the cost of the expeditions amid threats to China’s northern land frontier. The move suspended China’s state-backed long-range naval aspirations for 500 years.
Liu Cigui, the head of China’s coast guard, invoked Zheng in a June 8 article arguing that rebuilding maritime power is an essential part of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Xi incorporated that phrase in his “Chinese Dream” speech in March last year when he set 2049, the 100th anniversary of Communist rule, as a target for China to restore itself to economic, political and cultural primacy in Asia.
No comments:
Post a Comment