So where does China fit in exactly? “(Now), the Chinese would have to devote at least half the funds. What's in it for them? A new global role. This could be the spur to giving China a much larger say at the IMF. In fact, it might be necessary to make clear that Christine Lagarde would be the last non-Chinese head of the organization.”
Leading a rescue package for Europe would grant China a greatly enhanced global role no military advances or diplomat maneuvers could supplant, while helping to safeguard one of its largest markets would help underpin China’s economic growth.
Still, China is understandably unlikely to abandon its military advances in favor of diplomatic praise. With this in mind, though, it would be best served by focusing its military capital on further developing its Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy. Dedicating massive financial recourses to second-hand aircraft carriers with limited capabilities, or creating new carries that will take years to develop, could eventually look like an expensive folly compared to an effective and focused A2/AD strategy. China’s resources would be better served further creating and developing capable and ultra quiet next generation Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) diesel submarines for deployment in and around Taiwan and the South China Sea and fully developing anti-ship ballistic missile technology like the DF-21D.
A focus on A2/AD tactics and weapons, combined with the natural advantages of fighting in its home territory, is already proving a challenge to U.S. strategists with naval forces invested in increasingly vulnerable carrier battle groups. With America looking to cut its military budget and still maintain significant forces in the Asia-Pacific through operational concepts like “Air-Sea Battle,” just being able to afford to stay the course may be China’s best military strategy.
All this is easier said than done. But steps such as reining in the country’s self-defeating propaganda machine, including jingoistic op-eds in the Global Times, would cost little – ifChina is to respond to international concerns, then it needs to utilize all means at its disposal, and that doesn’t just mean hardware or even diplomats. Catchphrases like “mutual interest” and “peaceful rise” are no longer convincing (if indeed they ever were) and need to be retired.
China has many potential tools with which to negate the U.S. strategy. Deploying and sticking to such a approach will be a challenge for sure, especially with the coming transition to a new generation of leaders later this year. China may or may not aspire to global leadership – the burden of leadership is never easy to bear after all. But if it wants to avoid being encircled by the United States’ deft pivot to the region in the long run, then it would be well-advised to undertake a comprehensive revamp of all tools at its disposal, however hard that might feel in the short term.
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A.J.Majumdar
China will definitely not take the advice, doled out gratuitously in this essay, about being friendly with the neighbours. With the growing domestic resentment of venality and corruption,Beijing will definitely choose warfare with the neighbours, perhaps low-intensity warfare. Further China is motivated by two major aspirations of Hitler. 1. lebensraum: the Hans breeding copiously, will not be satisfied with Xinjiang, Mongolia and Tibet; they are eyeing Vietnam and Arunachal Pradesh. . anschluss; having spread out in all directions, they will demand that the areas where Chines have settled in substantial numbers should be joined with China. It's time to take note.
Tofu Dynasty
How many people here have actually been to China? In Shanghai China’s premier city, Chinese urban dwellers hang their clothes out to dry like the Favelas in Brazil. China is not even at Mexico’s level of GDP per capita and the Red Guards in here are already crowning China as a developed superpower! It makes me laugh but they do look and sound ridiculous when the reality of China makes a mockery out of their claim. Maybe when I see less clothes drying outside in Shanghai then I would believe China is progressing. :))
Cyrus
John how many Chinese products have been recalled in recent memory because it has chemicals not safe for human consumption?
Tofu Dynasty
Wow, more Red Guards are crowing about predictions and forecasting of China’s future economic progress from some obscure Think Thank I see!!! It seems like wishful thinking is the only thing the descendants of Mao can use as proof of China’s economic superiority built on sweat shop labor and investment from Overseas Chinese. The future is very hard to predict. Who would have predicted the internet, iphone, ipad, Microsoft ect. By the way did any of those things came from China? LOL Keep dreaming little Red Guards. Your government can’t even convince your own people and much less ethnic minorities like Uighurs and Tibetans that China is stable and prosperous.
Like I said fifty years from the US will remain a stable prosperous democracy while Communist China will become what?????? I think the chances of China imploding is more valid and more believable than wishful thinking.
Remember making Christmas lights and value meal toys does not mean economic superiority or superpower status! :) I love how unrealistic these Chinese dreamers are.
eyedrd
Chinese Navy Hegemony Continues to Bully Unarmed Fishing Boats: Are the acts of Pirates or of a Navy?
Let’s take a look at a situation where a navy ship heavily equipped with guns and missiles saw small fishing boats,unarmed, wandering into the water that the navy ship was guarding.
What would that navy ship should act or behave toward those small fishing ships looking for shelter due to the big wind? In a civilized maritime law, the navy ship should have come into the rescue of the small ships in danger and then direct those ships out of their turf.
Instead, this navy ship shot at unarmed fishermen and beat them up and confiscated all of the catches, worth of $25,000. Is it a normal conduct of a navy? or the behavior of the navy ship was just like any pirates using force to brutalize unarmed people and rob their catches.
SCdad07
Now that World Bank released its report on China. I await the fireworks to follow.
“If China does not follow the …paths….COLLAPSE….. yet, before 2030, China will exceed US as the largest economy…”.
I smell Opium: Page 16 on report recommends free market approach so : “allowing interest rates to be set by market forces”.
Bernanke and Legarde – are you listening.