CMSI Note #10: China\u27s Summer of 2024: The Missing Chapter

Key Takeaways: In the summer of 2024, two Chinese oceanographic survey ships—the Xiang Yang Hong 01 and Kexue—conducted marine scientific research activities in the Bering Sea. Their actions represented a significant expansion of PRC marine data collection in this region. The Bering Sea is a key segment in the sea lanes connecting China with the Arctic Ocean. Thus, the operations of these two vessels should be understood as part of the unprecedented ramp-up in Beijing’s Arctic endeavors that occurred in 2024. The main purposes of the two Bering Sea cruises are unknown. However, both ships were built to meet military requirements, at least in part. Even if they were just conducting basic marine science, the data they collected is inherently dual-use and will be shared with the Chinese military, improving its awareness of the operating environment. The Xiang Yang Hong 01 operated in Russia’s EEZ and visited a Russian military port, demonstrating a high degree of Russian support for PRC activities in the region. Both ships conducted marine scientific research in waters above the U.S.-claimed extended continental shelf. If their operations involved surveys of the seabed, they would constitute a direct challenge to the U.S. maritime claim.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-notes/1009/thumbnail.jp

Panning for Gold: Assessing Chinese Maritime Strategy from Primary Sources

What are the drivers behind China’s vigorous pursuit of sea power? What are the interests Beijing seeks to advance by building a powerful blue- water navy and the world’s largest coast guard? What are the principles that guide its use of sea power in pursuit of its national interest? How are China’s state objectives, and approaches to pursuing them, evolving over time

China Maritime Report No. 24: Incubators of Sea Power: Vessel Training Centers and the Modernization of the PLAN Surface Fleet

The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is building modern surface combatants faster than any other navy in the world. Before these new ships can be deployed, however, their crews must learn how to effectively operate them across the range of missions for which they were designed. In the PLAN, this “basic training” largely occurs at specialized organizations called Vessel Training Centers (VTCs). Since their creation in 1980, VTCs have played a key role in generating combat power for the fleet. But as China’s naval ambitions have grown, the VTCs have been forced to adapt. Since the early 2000s, and especially since 2012, they have faced tremendous pressure to keep pace with the rapid expansion and modernization of the PLAN surface fleet and its growing mission set, improve the standards and quality of vessel training, and uphold the integrity of training evaluations. This report argues that the PLAN’s VTCs have generally risen to the challenge, ensuring that new and recently-repaired ships can quickly reach operational units in a fairly high state of readiness.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/1023/thumbnail.jp

Echelon Defense: The Role of Sea Power in Chinese Maritime Dispute Strategy

On April 10, 2012, two Chinese law-enforcement cutters on joint patrol in the South China Sea received orders to proceed immediately to Scarborough Shoal, a disputed cluster of rocks 140 nautical miles west of Subic Bay, the Philippines. Earlier that day, a Chinese fisherman aboard one of several boats moored in the lagoon had transmitted an alarming message to authorities in his home port in Hainan: “Philippine Navy ship number 15 heading this way.” Ship number 15 was BRP Gregorio del Pilar, an elderly former U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) cutter now serving as a frigate in the Philippine navy. Not long after the first message arrived in Hainan, sailors operating from the ship entered the lagoon and approached the Chinese boats. At this point, the fisherman sent a final message: “They’re boarding.”https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-red-books/1014/thumbnail.jp

China Maritime Report No. 2: The Arming of China’s Maritime Frontier

China’s expansion in maritime East Asia has relied heavily on non-naval elements of sea power, above all white-hulled constabulary forces. This reflects a strategic decision. Coast guard vessels operating on the basis of routine administration and backed up by a powerful military can achieve many of China’s objectives without risking an armed clash, sullying China’s reputation, or provoking military intervention from outside powers. Among China’s many maritime agencies, two organizations particularly fit this bill: China Marine Surveillance (CMS) and China Fisheries Law Enforcement (FLE). With fleets comprising unarmed or lightly armed cutters crewed by civilian administrators, CMS and FLE could vigorously pursue China’s maritime claims while largely avoiding the costs and dangers associated with classic “gunboat diplomacy.”https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/1001/thumbnail.jp

Beyond the Wall: Chinese Far Seas Operation

This volume is the product of a groundbreaking dialogue on sea-lane security held between People\u27s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy and U.S. Navy scholars at the Naval War College in August 2013, with additional material from a related conference, China\u27s Far Seas Operations, hosted by the China Maritime Studies Institute in May 2012. At that time the political climate in China was uncertain, in the shadow of the Bo Xilai crisis and of the impending transition of power between the Hu and Xi regimes; accordingly the PLA Navy, though invited to participate in the Far Seas conference, ultimately declined to do so. This was not entirely surprising. Attempts by various agencies of the U.S. Navy up to that time to engage in discussions to advance maritime cooperation between China and the United States had been met with lukewarm responses at best. But at a maritime security dialogue in Dalian in September 2012 Senior Capt. Zhang Junshe of the PLA Navy Research Institute, a key contributor to this volume and to the success of the academic cooperation between our two institutes, approached Peter Dutton to tell him that everything had changed.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-red-books/1012/thumbnail.jp

China Maritime Report No. 3: China’s Distant-Ocean Survey Activities: Implications for U.S. National Security

Today, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is investing in marine scientific research on a massive scale. This investment supports an oceanographic research agenda that is increasingly global in scope. One key indicator of this trend is the expanding operations of China’s oceanographic research fleet. On any given day, 5-10 Chinese “scientific research vessels” (科学考查船) may be found operating beyond Chinese jurisdictional waters, in strategically-important areas of the Indo-Pacific. Overshadowed by the dramatic growth in China’s naval footprint, their presence largely goes unnoticed. Yet the activities of these ships and the scientists and engineers they embark have major implications for U.S. national security. This report explores some of these implications. It seeks to answer basic questions about the out-of-area—or “distant-ocean” (远洋)—operations of China’s oceanographic research fleet. Who is organizing and conducting these operations? Where are they taking place? What do they entail? What are the national drivers animating investment in these activities?https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-maritime-reports/1002/thumbnail.jp

China\u27s Evolving Surface Fleet

The missile fast-attack craft and amphibious fleets of the People\u27s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy (PLAN) have undergone significant modernization over the past fifteen years. The capabilities of both categories of vessels have improved even if their actual numbers have not increased dramatically. Examined from the perspective of PLA doctrine and training, the missions of these forces represent the PLAN\u27s past, present, and future.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-red-books/1013/thumbnail.jp

Study No. 8, Chinese Amphibious Warfare: Prospects for a Cross-Strait Invasion

Through concerted efforts over the past quarter-century, the People\u27s Republic of China has achieved the most dramatic military buildup since World War II. Previously limited in its ability to conduct its Joint Firepower Strike, Joint Blockade, and Joint Island Landing Campaigns against Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is making rapid progress across the board as it prepares to meet the requirements of Xi Jinping’s Taiwan-focused Centennial Military Building Goal of 2027. Drawing on research, writing, and insights from some of the world’s leading experts, CMSI’s latest edited conference volume probes key questions concerning Beijing’s determined pursuit of the Chinese Communist Party’s ultimate political and strategic prize: How might the PLA attempt to execute a Joint Island Landing Campaign to achieve a cross-Strait invasion of Taiwan, what might be its prospects for success, and what must Taiwan—with American support—do urgently to shore up deterrence? The findings are nuanced but bracing. The saving grace, till now, is that Taiwan enjoys formidable defensive geography, and a large-scale amphibious invasion is one of the most difficult military operations to accomplish. However, under Xi’s concerted directives, China’s military is reforming relentlessly, bringing critical new capabilities to bear, and training tirelessly to improve its ability to carry out the operations on which it is bore-sighted. The stakes could scarcely be higher, and the clock is ticking.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cmsi-studies/1000/thumbnail.jp