And develops a cruise missile to supplement its seagoing arsenal
China is developing a ship-based
cruise missile that has the capability to attack targets thousands of
kilometers inland, snapshots published by a military enthusiast web site
suggest. For the first time, that would give the People's Liberation Army Navy
a weapon comparable to the US's hugely successful Tomahawk missile.
It is the newest chapter in
Beijing's quest to be taken seriously as a global military power. While China
has had land-based cruise missiles for perhaps a decade, the emergence of the
new ship-launched ones, which are designed to carry out long-distance precision
attacks against targets on land at the lowest risk to its own forces, is an
indication of how far the Chinese has come since Mao Zedong was in charge.
Under Mao, China's navy was
concentrated on coastal defense and for the possible invasion of Taiwan. It
wasn't until Chinese military planners in the late 1990s realized that their
rising country could quickly be brought to its knees by an enemy seeking to
choke off the economy's supply of oil and other raw materials on the high seas.
Currently 74 destroyers and
frigates as well as 63 submarines make up the Chinese blue-water navy. The new
missiles, which in theory could be launched from either platform, are expected
to do their share in beefing up the force. What ship-launched land-attack
cruise missiles can achieve has been impressively demonstrated by the US Navy
and its allies in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the 1995 Bosnian War, the 2003
invasion of Iraq and the 2011 campaign against Libya, among others.
According to James R. Holmes, an
associate professor at the US Naval War College, it's clear that the Chinese
Tomahawk isn't meant for contingencies in East and Southeast Asia. Against
China's opponents there, they are hardly needed.
“China's inventory of land-based
ballistic missiles already gives Beijing an enormous asset to Chinese diplomacy
vis-a-vis countries within the missile envelope strikingly depicted in the
Pentagon's annual reports on Chinese military power,” Holmes told Asia
Sentinel. But, he said, outside the range of the Second Artillery, the unit
controlling the PLA's arsenal of land-based nuclear and conventional missiles,
the picture is different.
“There a land-attack cruise
missile grants the PLA Navy an option to project power from the sea, much as
the US Navy has enjoyed since the Tomahawk debuted in the 1980s,” Holmes said.
“This is part of China's coming-out party as a blue-water sea power.”
In order to evolve from a
Mao-inspired naval force that kept its home ports pretty much in view to one
that ensures free passage for Chinese merchant fleets tens of thousands of
kilometers away, Beijing not only needs continuing breakthroughs in the
acquisition of weapon systems but must also send the navy to practice. Farewell
ceremonies in China's naval bases have been becoming more and more familiar to
the Chinese blue-water fleets ever since 2008, when China became a
participating member in the international anti-piracy patrols off Somalia,
having marked the first time Chinese warships operated outside their own
territorial waters.
Illustrating the Somalia
mission's importance to the navy’s coming-of-age are the numbers when added up:
Since operations began, in stints that last about four months, Beijing has
dispatched 11 naval escort task forces that usually consist of one or two destroyers
or frigates and one supply ship. If deployment continues at this pace, each
destroyer and frigate will have had its turn in about five years.
Because the task forces come with
well over 600 sailors plus a few dozen special operations personnel, thousands
of Chinese military men and women who rotate through the anti-pirate patrol
operations are provided with the opportunity to get somewhere near to what
could cautiously be described as real combat stations.
Chances to sail elsewhere for the
odd operation and also to carry out friendly calls to far-away ports have been
deriving from the Somalia mission: In 2010, Chinese warships visited Egypt,
Italy and Greece. Last year, a missile frigate was diverted from the Somali
coast to waters off Libya. In what amounted to the navy’s first-ever operation
in the Mediterranean, it protected the evacuation of Chinese civilians amid the
raging civil war. some 12,000 km from its home port.
In mid-August, also for the first
time in history, the PLA navy paid a friendly visit to Israel and later made
its maiden entry into the Black Sea, sailing with a destroyer and a frigate
that are part of the 11th Chinese naval escort task force, to Bulgaria. The
Chinese naval hospital ship Peace Ark has also been cruising Asian, African and
Caribbean waters in the meantime, treating tens of thousands of afflicted
people as part of a goodwill mission.
Although Chinese soldiers and
sailors have fired hardly any shots during their stints off the African coast,
let alone on excursions into the Mediterranean, the missions are hugely
valuable because according to the PLA calculus, this hands-on experience would
be badly needed if in future conflicts an enemy were to block the Suez Canal,
the Strait of Hormuz or the Malacca Straits.
Professor Holmes says a Chinese
“Tomahawk” fits neatly into the equation. He finds that although such a system
is of concrete use mainly for powers like the US, which unlike China do not
maintain an inventory of conventional, land-based ballistic missiles that can
devastate most potential opponents, in China's case, it's a very plausible
choice, if only to provide Beijing's foreign policy with powerful argumentative
ammunition.
“Demonstrated capability confers
diplomatic influence,” he said. “This adds luster to the PLA Navy's reputation
outside East Asia and to China's reputation more broadly.”
Jens Kastner
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