China’s Rise as a Naval Power and What’s at Stake for the U.S. | Amanpour and Company

and turning next to China and signs of trouble for the world's second largest economy which has now slipped into deflation High rates of youth unemployment a housing market crisis and ballooning local debt all slowed their post-pandemic recovery but beijing's political influence overseas is growing Toshi yoshihara is a senior fellow at the center for strategic and budgetary assessments and joins Hari srinivasan to discuss China's ambitions Christian thanks Toshi yoshihara thanks so much for joining us let's start with some recent news just in the past few days we have seen a couple of different forms of what could be called Chinese aggression one was a joint Naval exercise between the Russian Navy and the Chinese Navy up near the Aleutian Islands and for most of us that geography lesson is sort of the long tale of Alaska very close to Russia out in the Bering Sea and then there was an interesting case just the other day of a Philippine Coast Guard ship trying to do a resupply run and they were intercepted and stopped on their way by a Chinese Coast Guard ship that used water cannons to just I guess divert them and slow them down and stop them so I wonder when you look at these kind of events and these are just the most recent events what goes through your mind it seems to me that what we're seeing is China's rise as a naval power China is demonstrating its ability to show the flag if you will in America's backyard near Alaska along the aleutians in the case of the Philippines this has been an ongoing territorial dispute between China and the Philippines in which the Philippines has sought to assert its presence on the second Thomas Scholl and China has been more aggressively seeking to push the Philippines off of that particular feature and so what we're seeing is really China trying to assert its prerogatives in its backyard in the South China Sea with the Philippines and China demonstrating that it has emerged as a global Naval Power by operating much further from Chinese Shores than in the recent past you know we also had a case recently where there were charges brought against two U.S Navy sailors they were arrested for allegedly spying for China what does that potential kind of infiltration say to you on the kind of different layers of Chess I guess that China is playing I think the Espionage cases that we've uh witnessed recently is really part of a much broader pattern of Chinese Espionage China has been engaged in a sort of all of nation effort to gather as much intelligence information from its opponents and its adversaries and so China has been trying to steal um uh um intellectual property it has been trying to gain intelligence and information through open sources it is really using all means possible to gain a greater situational awareness of its opponents and of its adversaries what we've of course witnessed the recent balloon incident where China deployed a balloon that crossed over into the continental United States again these are multiple pieces that are operating at the same time to give China essentially an informational advantage over its opponents and its adversaries why is it still important to have a large Navy I mean right now Chinese Navy production seems to be far outpacing the United States China has many reasons for building a large ocean-going Navy the first primary reason is that China is a global trading power and that means that China needs to have an independent capability to defend the sea lanes that transport the goods and services that are so essential to China's growing economy and so this is uh consistent with the familiar adage that the flag follows the trade a big ocean-going Navy also has the capacity to engage in humanitarian missions to protect Chinese Nationals living overseas who might be stuck in unstable regions of the world in times of crisis uh a ocean-going Navy also essentially allows China to flex his muscles to show the flag to show that it has arrived on the world stage a powerful navy also appeals to Chinese nationalism which is of course a critical pillar of the Chinese Communist party's regime legitimacy but I think ultimately the most important aspect of a powerful navy is that it is a critical tool for fighting and winning a nation's Wars and of course China has many territorial disputes in the maritime domain that require China to have this standing Naval Force to fight and win its Wars and of course among those flash points we have Taiwan territorial disputes with Japan and the East China Sea and territorial disputes with the Southeast Asian Neighbors in the South China Sea all of these are intensely Maritime and character and therefore China needs this large Navy to resolve those territorial disputes in its favor I want to get to Taiwan in a second but give me some perspective here on how the U.S Navy and the Chinese navies stack up I mean it's not necessarily just sort of how many ships you have versus how many ships do you have I mean technological capability wise versus sheer numbers is there some sort of a Tipping Point where the Chinese Navy gains parity if not an advantage over the U.S Navy I think it's worth noting that in terms of Fleet size uh China is already the largest Navy in the world uh it has um well over uh 340 uh Battle Force ships uh compared to the U.S Navy which is just around 300 or a little under 300. of course as you mentioned uh Fleet size or the number of ships isn't really the only way to measure Naval power there are a lot of qualitative factors including the quality of the equipment the quality of personnel the quality of training the quality of their operational experiences and their traditions and in terms of these more intangible factors I think most would agree that the United States is still in the lead however I would add that the Chinese Navy is trying to remediate its deficiencies it's improving its quality and it is very methodically and systematically catching up to the U.S Navy I think one one other thing worth mentioning is just to get a sense of the speed and scale of the China's Naval buildup it really is a naval building spree many of the modern warships that we see in the Chinese Navy today did not exist just a decade ago we're we're talking about a a Navy that's growing at an extraordinary speed something that we haven't seen certainly since the Cold War perhaps even since World War II let's talk a little bit about Taiwan and right now Taiwan is in the news a lot because there's this kind of constant concern will China become more aggressive how valuable Taiwan is in terms of semiconductors and everything else that's important to the rest of the world and you see kind of forces lining up to try and show their flags and say we support Taiwan we want to keep free trade with Taiwan what is China's interest and how does a growing Naval presence on the ocean play into that and is there something inevitable about how they're amassing their Navy and how they can reclaim Taiwan China has a variety of interest in Taiwan China considers uh Taiwan and its return to China as a vital National interest in fact it is so important to China that it is in fact willing to go to war over it now there are many reasons for for why China values Taiwan to such an extent the first is that Taiwan is strategic terrain it is simply geostrategically very well located in the Western Pacific it sits at the midpoint of the so-called first island chain that runs from the Japanese Islands through Taiwan down through the Philippines and of course if you look at that island chain the United States has formal Allied relations with Japan and the Philippines it is a close friend of Taiwan the United States has forward bases located in Japan and so from China's perspective getting Taiwan back would essentially break that first island chain and half because it sits at the midpoint of that island chain Taiwan of course is also a reminder to the Chinese Communist party uh that uh the Chinese people and democracy are not fundamentally incompatible and of course that's a a daily rebuke essentially to the Chinese Communist party's claim that somehow Chinese society and Democratic Values are fundamentally incompatible Taiwan of course as you've mentioned is a major economic asset and of course that would also of course add to China's economic power if it were to return to China and so for for for all of these reasons uh Taiwan is a vital strategic asset for China and conversely it is also a very important terrain if you will for the United States and its allies in the Western Pacific as for the role of the Chinese Navy with the regards to Taiwan in a potential crisis or War because of course Taiwan is an island China will need to use Naval assets to achieve its operational aims to achieve its War aims should War break out China will need to have a significant amphibious capability to land forces on Taiwan in a major Invasion scenario China will also need to use its submarines and its ships to keep out third-party intervention including the United States and its allies and so Naval power is going to be one of many components of China's strategy if it were to conduct an invasion against Taiwan the vide Administration has asked Congress to increase funding to Aid Taiwan specifically with arms I mean that'd be the first time U.S taxpayers dollars would be involved directly in funding Munitions that could stand this close against China does this further heighten the tension does it serve as the deterrent that the U.S probably wants it to serve as in my view I think the recent efforts to support Taiwan with arms uh is really long overdue there has been a long-standing backlog of military items that has been due to Taiwan for quite some time I think it's also important to note that really it's China that has been attempting to change the status quo by engaging in essentially increasing pressure tactics against the island using a regular air patrols air sorties flying near Taiwan conducting Naval sorties around circumnavigating Taiwan uh and so I think it's important to know that uh you know it is an interactive process in which uh the United States and its allies are in many ways responding to China's growing assertiveness when it comes to Taiwan and so I think it's important that the United States continues to provide the necessary arms to ensure that the United States and Taiwan and it's out and the U.S allies can deter uh Chinese efforts to change the status quo I also want to I wonder about what China and Taiwan take from the actions that Russia has been taking on Ukraine for the past 18 months is there sort of a Playbook that China can follow considering that this war and has dragged on for as long as it has and at the same time you see Taiwan starting to dig in its heels and try to figure out how to build up their defenses for what they perceive might be coming so I think both China and Taiwan have been closely monitoring the war in Ukraine let me say a few words about the Chinese perspective on the war in Ukraine I think there are those uh in the United States who have argued that because uh Russia has done so poorly up to this point in its war against Ukraine uh that we could draw a similar parallel to China that China might also not perform as well uh against Taiwan in a conflict in my view I think that perspective is overly sanguine it seems to me that China will study the war in Ukraine very closely and try to improve its chances of success in fact the war in Ukraine has likely convinced Beijing that it needs to double down on its current strategy its military strategy for example focuses on the overwhelming application of force and so when they look at the Russian example by using token forces for example during the initial phases of the war I think the Chinese leadership is convinced that that is not the way to go the way to go is to apply overwhelming's Force as has been laid out in Chinese military Doctrine I think Beijing may have also learned some potentially troubling lessons with regards to Putin's uh nuclear saber rattling against uh NATO and the United States now while Putin's nuclear threats did not deter the United States and NATO from helping Ukraine um it certainly instilled a greater degree of caution on the part of the West and so it is likely that Beijing may have learned that in a crisis over Taiwan that Beijing should rattle its nuclear Sabers early on in a crisis or in a conflict to get the United States and its allies to back down I think another really interesting lesson is the role of zelenski he of course played a very important role in galvanizing International support China would have an interest in ensuring that a zelenski liked leader does not emerge in Taiwan during a crisis or a conflict and therefore Beijing might be convinced that it needs to double down on a decapitation strategy to assassinate or kill by other means taiwan's political and Military leadership at the outset of a crisis or of a conflict to prevent the emergence of a charismatic leader on the island so it seems to me that many of the lessons that emerged from Ukraine will likely convince China to double down on its existing strategies and capabilities from the center for strategic and budgetary assessment senior fellow Toshi yoshihara thanks so much for joining us thank you for having me [Music] foreign

Channel: Amanpour and Company

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Keywords: interview, CNN, PBS, Christiane Amanpour, world news, news anchor, news show, news, public affairs, late-night TV, journalist, Chief International Correspondent, China, Economics, Deflation

Id: K1Laz3-XR9g

Length: 17min 34sec (1054 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023