Thinking about China and War

Aerospace Power Journal, Winter, 2001 by Jeffrey Dr. Record

One should not forget that the emergence of Japan as a great power in the first half of the twentieth century came largely at China's expense: first, the extraction of economic concessions, then the conversion of Manchuria into a Japanese puppet state, and finally the invasion and brutal occupation of much of China proper. Although China has only minor territorial disputes with Japan, the emergence of China as a great power will inevitably come in part at Japan's expense in terms of its economic and political clout in Asia. This will be especially the case if Japan's economic and demographic stagnation continues.

Comparative Advantages and Disadvantages

Primary Sino-American war starters seem to be Chinese aggression against Taiwan and in the South China Sea. Yet, a US defense of Taiwan and of freedom of navigation in the western Pacific would play greatly to America's traditional military strengths while at the same time exploit long-standing Chinese weaknesses.

Historically, China's sole strategically impressive war-fighting suit has been the quantity of its ground forces, which counts for little in the pursuit of offshore imperial ambitions. Asserting and maintaining dominance over Taiwan and the South China Sea require mastery of air and naval power--arenas in which the United States is peerless and likely to remain so for decades (assuming no retreat to isolationism plus a determination to maintain both conventional military supremacy and a forward military presence in East Asia--neither to be taken for granted). Chinese naval and air forces are rudimentary by US standards, but perhaps an even greater deficiency is the absence of any modern combat experience. China has not fought a major war since Korea (where US airpower pummeled the PLA), whereas the United States has had a virtual cornucopia of such experience since the end of the Cold War. Practice may not make perfect, but it is surely better than sitting on the military bench for almost half a century. (Chi na's brief and highly restricted invasion of Vietnam in 1979 pitted masses of poorly armed and trained Chinese troops against better-equipped North Vietnamese combat veterans.)

Crucial to sound thinking about war with China is recognition that to shift America's primary strategic focus from Europe to Asia is to shift from a predominantly ground-air to a predominantly air-sea theater of operations. Why? Because of the asymmetrical distributions of wealth and power between the two regions. Most of Asia's wealth and power still lies in offshore and peninsular states, whereas in Europe it is concentrated ashore. Thus, maintaining a balance of power in Europe (i.e., preventing Europe's domination by a hostile power) mandated a willingness and capacity to wage ground warfare deeply inland. In contrast, maintaining an Asian balance of power requires performing the simpler task of keeping offshore and peninsular Asia outside a continental hegemon's grasp. (9) Large land-warfare operations in the Asian interior are not just unnecessary; they are to be avoided at all costs because they would pit US weaknesses against a continental hegemon's strengths. Even Gen Douglas MacArthur, who in 1951 w anted to expand the Korean War into an air and sea assault on China, declared that "it would be a master folly to contemplate the use of United States ground troops in China," adding that "I can conceive of no strategic or tactical position where I would put in...units of American ground troops in continental China." (10)