THE EAST CHINA SEA - DEFENSE LINE

THE EAST CHINA SEA: DEFENSE LINE

THE EAST CHINA SEA: DEFENSE LINE

The first similarity between China and the Soviet Union is the creation of a defense line against their adversaries’ main avenue of approach to their homelands; the Soviet Union drew its line in Eastern Europe, while China’s is the ECS. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union regarded Eastern Europe as a defense line against potential threats from the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet army stationed 60 percent of its best divisions in Eastern Europe to prevent invasions from the west.¹⁹ Even Admiral Gorshkov believed that Soviet naval strategy should support the protection of the main “Central Front” line on the ground in Europe. He once noted that the Soviets were especially concerned about the security environment in Eastern Europe because all previous invasions of Russia had come from this direction—not surprising, given the comparatively permissive geographic accessibility on its western borders.²⁰ Accordingly, the Soviet Union concentrated its force in Eastern Europe to create a defense line against attacks from that direction.

Similarly, China views the ECS as its defense line against the U.S. Navy. China experienced a painful humiliation during the Taiwan crisis in 1995, facing two USN carrier strike groups that taught China the necessity of developing effective countermeasures against U.S. power-projection capabilities.²¹ During a meeting with President George W. Bush in 2003, China’s then president Hu Jintao explained that Taiwan is the most significant security concern for China by using the phrase 核心的利益 (core national interest).²² Since then, China has focused its defense efforts on its eastern coastline to face potential threats from the United States and its allies. Despite its continuous military development, China remains concerned about this potential threat from USN operations from the east.²³

Some may say that the characteristics of the threats faced by China and the Soviet Union are different because China’s concern is maritime while the Soviet Union’s was terrestrial. Nevertheless, a comparison of their defensive strategies reveals striking similarities. The Soviet Union created a buffer zone between itself and the Western powers by incorporating Eastern Europe into the Eastern Bloc. Likewise, China intends to create a buffer zone in the ECS. In 2010, Major General Peng Guangjian, a senior theorist at the Academy of Military Science, introduced the PLAN’s Active Strategic Counterattacks on Exterior Lines (ASCEL) concept. ASCEL leverages the advantages of forward defense by using preemptive strikes against U.S. military forces. In the United States, this operational approach is often called the antiaccess/area-denial (A2/ AD) strategy. This strategy consists of two parts: antiaccess involves preventing U.S. forces from entering China’s operations area—the west side of the first island chain; and area-denial, which means restricting operations conducted by the United States within China’s operations area.²⁴ In short, the ECS would perform a similar strategic buffering function for China to what Eastern Europe did for the Soviet Union.

Both the father of the Soviet navy . . . and the father of the Chinese navy . . . transformed their fleets into blue-water forces to operationalize Mahan’s strategic counsel to contain one’s potential adversary, and did so against the same target: the U.S. Navy.

Today, China has acquired and deployed potent ASCEL capabilities. China already has antiship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), the DF-21D and DF-26B. These are the so-called carrier killers, and some consider them to be China’s most dangerous weapons against U.S. and allied naval forces.²⁵ In addition to ASBMs, the PLAN is acquiring additional silent diesel submarines and long-range, hypersonic, antiship cruise missiles (ASCMs). These can be launched from platforms such as J-11B, H-6, and DH-10 aircraft. Hypersonic cruise missiles are a particular concern because their high speed makes effective countermeasures against them difficult.²⁶ Thus, the PLAN has various capabilities that can be used to conduct coordinated attacks using ASBMs, ASCMs, and torpedoes to carry out an ASCEL strategy in the ECS.

However, China has a geographic disadvantage. The PLAN’s main forces with responsibilities for the ECS, the North Sea and East Sea Fleets, are completely surrounded by the Japanese archipelago (see figure 1). To proceed out into the Pacific Ocean to conduct ASCEL operations against the U.S. Navy, PLAN warships would need to pass through choke points between those islands. Transiting maritime choke points is an enormously difficult and perilous task for surface ships in times of conflict because of the geographic constraints on maneuvering and an adversary’s potential ability to concentrate forces from multiple domains against those points.²⁷ Hence, to mitigate its vulnerability to multiaxis attacks from the shore, sea, and air, the PLAN needs to improve its ability to achieve sea control and air superiority around the Japanese archipelago.

FIGURE 1

CHINESE COAST SURROUNDED BY JAPANESE ISLANDS

FIGURE 1 CHINESE COAST SURROUNDED BY JAPANESE ISLANDS

The PLAN seeks to ensure the survivability of its surface ships by enhancing their mobility. Since 2008, the PLAN has been conducting passages through the southern parts of Japan, such as across the Okinawa–Miyako Islands line and through the Osumi Strait, as well as in northern parts, such as the Tsugaru and Sōya Straits.²⁸ China’s air force has increased its activities in these areas dramatically as well, and the number of times Japan has scrambled fighters in response to Chinese military aircraft has increased correspondingly. According to Japan’s Ministry of Defense, the number of fighter scrambles against Chinese incursions in 2016 was thirteen times greater than in 2006.²⁹ This acceleration of Chinese activities in the ECS indicates that China aims to overcome its geographic disadvantage by seizing sea and air superiority in a conflict.

In short, China considers the ECS to be its defense line against the United States and its allies. Building ASCEL capabilities, the PLAN intends to create a buffer zone against the activities of U.S. forces in the region, and China intends to mitigate its geographic disadvantages by increasing its ability to access choke points. China’s strategy is similar to the strategy of the Soviet Union in terms of making a buffer zone to protect a defense line, but the importance of naval forces will be much greater for China because it needs to focus on the ocean instead of the land. In fact, China deploys a huge number of PLAN units as well as groundbased missiles in the buffer zone around the ECS, similar to how the Soviet Union deployed ground forces in Eastern Europe.

The Taiwan crises of the 1990s triggered China’s pursuit of an ECS buffer zone, the purpose of which is thought to be to prevent adversary forces (especially the U.S. Navy) from intervening against its operations there, such as potential moves against Taiwan. This contrasts with the Soviet buffer zone in Eastern Europe, which was intended to halt invading troops. China already may have achieved this buffer and made similar progress toward overcoming its geographic disadvantages. If the U.S. military’s relative advantage continues to decline as a result of China’s rapid military developments, the ECS may become a “solidified” buffer zone in the near future, as Eastern Europe was for the Soviet Union during the Cold War, even without its hard political borders.