Xi Jinping inspects an honour guard before boarding the Xining, one of the PLA-N’s latest destroyers, Apr. 2019

by Rear Admiral Sudarshan Shrikhande (Retd)

The title for this column is meant to be more deliberate than dramatic. Chinese sea power in the western Pacific, its current primary area of concern, is already well and truly multi-dimensional. The PLA-N (People’s Liberation Army-Navy) is its lead instrument. But land, air, space and cyber dimensions are its important and growing partners. That may well be the reality in the Indian Ocean as well a decade from now. The signs are discernible if we wish to read the tea leaves.

More specifically, the Chinese navy has grown at a pace never seen before. Even the raising of a navy by the Spartans—a formidable land power—in the Peloponnesian war of 4 BCE, which then defeated Athens, an established sea power, falls short for pace of growth. A recent report by the CSIS (Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.) puts it starkly: ‘Between 2014 and 2018, China launched more submarines, warships, amphibious vessels and auxiliaries than the number of ships currently serving in the navies of Germany, India, Spain and the United Kingdom.’

In essence, their likely strategic and operational frameworks for the IOR (Indian Ocean Region) may mimic those for the first and second island chains. The PLA’s active-defence, sometimes vaguely termed in the West as A2AD (Anti-access/ Area Denial), is essentially sea control (with concomitant sea denial). This is in multiple dimensions, employing diverse instruments and welded with relatively recent major steps in integration (at Beijing) and jointness (in the joint theatres and supporting commands). The US and its allies are evolving joint services’ strategies and operational concepts to degrade the efficacy of the PLA-N operating relatively close to its own coast and bases. In turn, the PLA has several other arrows in its quiver. These include coastal and inland cruise and ballistic missiles capable of conventional land attack as well as in anti-ship versions (ASBM); and perhaps a new family of hypersonic weapons as well. Other longer range conventional missiles and, of course, the nuclear deterrent of the PLA Rocket Forces provide the deeper muscle. The PLA Air Force and PLA Naval Aviation both have long-range search and attack capabilities with several precision weapons that include ASCMs (anti-ship cruise missiles) and even air-launched ballistic ordnance. Finally, the PLA’s Strategic Support Forces bring the cyber, space, information and psychological warfare together with increasingly fused command and control networks. Taken together, it may not be a stretch to think of it as a dragon that shows a composite approach to warfare from jaws and claws to the tip of its lashing tail. The 2020 US DOD (Department of Defence) China Military Power Report shows the concern that the US, with a larger budget, greater technological sophistication and a global and powerful navy, now feels. In short, I would describe China’s advantages as a “5-P” mantra: Position, Precision, Persistence, Privilege (of pro-active choices to make) and, finally, a Panoply of ways to deliver ordnance and effects on adversaries.

While China’s challenges in the Indian Ocean are different, they may not seem necessarily greater to Beijing. In the western Pacific, it comes up against the US and its allies. While eventual uncertainty prevails as to whether the US will fight alongside Japan for, say, the Senkakus (as James Holmes posits—“what is the value of the object for the US?”), they are allies. Taiwan’s concerns are shared via Acts and promises. In the IOR, China indeed has stretched lines, but it is addressing these in naval terms and its “Five Ps” may become stronger with time.

In national strategic terms, India’s continental challenges will persist and may drive military-strategic options and escalatory/ de-escalatory dynamics. Second, while China has vulnerabilities along its SLOCs (sea lines of communication), dominating these in conflict or in high tension is a slow, resource-intensive but a necessary process for India. This could be true even for the PLA against Indian SLOCs in the IOR. On the other hand, in the China Seas, the PLA-N and their multitudinous maritime militia could impact our considerable trade very quickly unless the Indian Navy develops countermeasures to be deployed in the western Pacific. The expectation that coalition partners may do it for us seems currently far-fetched. For its ‘Five Ps’, China may well leverage another ‘P’: Pakistan. No matter how we look at it, India presently has no partner, friend or ally anywhere close to what China and Pakistan are to each other. In the IOR, even with China alone, we may have a multi-front maritime theatre. With both nations as likely adversaries, we will face multiple land, sea and air fronts. Apart from Pakistan, China seems to be seeking more friends, and places and bases that could help it at least in the initial stages in a conflict of choice. Politico-diplomatically, it may try and get away with missile and aircraft overflight routing for its belligerent forces. There’s every likelihood that it will bring to bear all its five dimensions against India with Pakistan as its active or sleeping partner to boot. With bases, places, friends and space-based surveillance, persistence and precision could erode the current benefits of position, internal operational lines and maritime geography for India.

Imitation As Counter-Strategy?

India’s maritime responses will, naturally, replicate in some ways Chinese strategies and the counters that the US and allies are considering in the Westpac: go multi-dimensional, integrate at New Delhi and go joint in theatres. If China deploys a carrier in conflict, sharpen ways of destroying it using the main long-range ordnance and submarines. In peace, PLA-N carrier deployments may take place, but the impact is actually rather limited as even recent western deployments indicate. We could imaginatively deploy stealthier assets into the South China Sea to tie down more of the PLA-N within its primary areas of concern in the Westpac and reduce their footprint in the IOR. India should also continue to leverage partnerships with Quad and some ASEAN friends to play more active and helpful roles in deterring China. Should deterrence collapse, partnerships could still provide useful ancillary leverages. There are ways for the Vasuki, the mythical Indian sea serpent, to tame the dragon.