China's maturing navy

Naval War College Review, Spring, 2006 by Eric A. McVadon

If it would be exaggeration, then, to assess this exercise as a sign of emergence as a fully mature force, the PLAN is creeping toward real blue-water exercises with composite task forces including surface combatants, submarines, and aviation. So far, only in occasional and isolated distant submarine transits does it approximate the task of confronting an enemy, the U.S. Navy, that it might need to keep at arm's length, many hundreds of miles from the Chinese coast. (14) In short, the PLAN is not visibly conducting exercises, alone or with other services, that rehearse confrontation with approaching U.S. Navy forces. The United States should be alert to such a development with this new force, a force designed to have the capabilities that could make such operations feasible.

ATTACKS FROM SEVERAL AXES

A new aspect of budding maturity, what could facetiously be termed "socialization," is looming and demands attention--the prospect that the PLAN and the 2nd Artillery Corps could (and should) join hands to bolster the nation's capability to attack Taiwan and pose a significantly greater and more diverse threat to the ability of the United States to intervene in the region. The greatly increased number and highly improved accuracy of China's medium- and short-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs and SRBMs), plus strategic and technical writings, suggest strongly that senior Chinese military leaders have recognized the enhancement of naval capabilities that would result from support by ballistic and land-attack cruise missiles. China's MRBMs (the DF-21C) and SRBMs (DF-15 and -11), with conventional warheads, have capabilities well beyond the psychological intimidation of Taiwan. (15) Prospective synergies stem from the ability of these potent missile arsenals to suppress Taiwan's offensive and defensive air power, support amphibious and airborne assaults on the island, strike American bases in the region, and possibly damage heavily Taiwanese naval forces before they could leave port.

However, the most important aspect of the increasing ballistic-missile threat is the prospect that within a few years China may be able seriously to threaten not only American land bases but also carrier strike groups, with maneuvering reentry vehicles (MaRVs). (16) MaRVed missiles, with conventional warheads, would maneuver both to enhance warhead survival (defeat missile defenses) and home on mobile (or stationary) targets. (17) The implications for the PLAN of this prospective 2nd Artillery capability are, of course, profound; they include the ability to degrade U.S. air and missile defenses (including the Aegis systems and carrier flight decks). That would allow follow-on attacks by layered, diverse, and appropriately redundant PLAN submarine, air, and surface forces firing large numbers of very modern and capable ASCMs, torpedoes, and even their guns if the earlier attacks suppress most defenses. (18) This and what follows are in clear outline the sort of threat the PLA and PLA Navy wish to pose to U.S. Navy forces. The precisely focused force the Chinese have built and what they have written about its use leave no doubt about the concept--although there are grave doubts about their ability to conduct it.