Naval vessel of the the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
Center for Security Policy

In the United States over the past eight years, China has found its perfect enemy, more concerned with appeasing the People’s Republic of China than in confronting it. After the United States withdrew from the Philippines in 1992, China saw the opportunity to fill the power vacuum by claiming the entire South China Sea, a project discussed in the posts Is China a Threat?, The Weakening of U.S. Alliances and National Security, and Probability of War with China Increasing?. Despite some U.S. Navy “freedom of navigation” operations recently in the South China Sea, the Obama administration has consistently ignored Chinese provocations as much as it possibly could in hopes they could engage China and ultimately convert them into friends — an approach identical to the one they adopted with Iran.

Now, with the approaching administration of Donald Trump no doubt weighing heavily on their minds, the Chinese are finding increasing reasons to be nervous about Asian pushback against their imperial ambitions. One can only hope in the face of all this nervousness that the Chinese do not allow their trigger fingers to get itchy.

Asian De Facto Alliances Against  the PRC

The Chinese claims  that have engendered this pushback from their neighbors are shown in the two maps below. The first shows not only Chinese claims in the South China Sea, bounded by the red curve, but the claims of other countries denoted by curves of other colors as well. Viewing these overlapping curves, you can appreciate the potential for conflict.

Almost equally concerning are China’s claims in the East China Sea, illustrated in the map below.

Observing China’s imperialistic predilections, many of China’s neighbors are getting very nervous themselves, leading to unexpected alliances to deter China’s appetites. In particular, Japan and South Korea, two countries with historically strained relations arising from World War II, are discussing cooperation to drive the Chinese and North Korean wolves from their doors. Reacting to this development, the Chinese are expressing their unhappiness in no uncertain terms.

What the South Koreans and Japanese have done is to sign a military intelligence pact to share sensitive information on the growing North Korean threat of nuclear-tipped missiles. Reuters reported on November 30,

China’s Defence Ministry on Wednesday expressed serious concern about South Korea and Japan signing a military intelligence pact to share sensitive information on the threat posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear activities.

The signing of the General Security of Military Information Agreement had originally been expected in 2012, but South Korea postponed it due to domestic opposition.

The case for the neighbors to pool intelligence has increased, however, as North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at a faster rate, and claims it has the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun said the move would add a new unsafe and unstable element to northeast Asia and smacked of a Cold War mentality.

Now why should China be so worried about Japanese and South Korean concern with the growing threat of China’s client? An essay on The American Interest website notes that the U.S. has encouraged the two countries to conduct joint missile defense drills, and share intelligence. In addition, the U.S. has announced the deployment of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-missile systems to South Korea. This is the same anti-missile system that has led Russia to threaten nuclear war should it be deployed in Europe. The specter of the THAAD system countering their nuclear missile capability probably has more to do with Chinese nervousness than the South Korean-Japanese military intelligence sharing. In fact, Chinese President Xi Jinping has confirmed that the presence of THAAD in the Chinese neighborhood is a principal concern for them. Striking, is it not, that a means for defense can so unhinge the imperialist powers of China and Russia?

No Sympathy To Be Found From A President Donald Trump

It is absolutely no secret that President-Elect Donald Trump has no great love for the People’s Republic of China. Throughout the presidential campaign, Trump has railed at China for “stealing” U.S. jobs away from us, and for dumping Chinese goods at below cost on U.S. markets. Trump this Friday emphasized his displeasure with China by accepting a call from Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen in which Tsai congratulated Trump for his election. After this poke to China’s eye, speculation was rife on whether or not the U.S. “one-China” policy was something Trump wanted to reconsider.

Now whatever your opinions about foreign trade (and I very much disagree with Trump on this issue, but that is a different story), the point here is that Trump is not feeling particularly friendly with China, and is not likely to take many blows from China without returning them many-fold. The possibilities China should be worried about would include the formation of many more THAAD batteries to be located with U.S. allies in China’s neighborhood. In addition, many more U.S. Navy incursions into areas of the South China Sea claimed by China could be expected.

A resurgent U.S. foreign policy in support of our Asian allies is yet another reason for China to grow worried and be very, very nervous.

China’s Strength

Because of the increasing brashness of China’s imperial policies  coupled with the change of regime in the United States, relations between the two countries are certain to become more conflict-ridden. We can only hope those conflicts remain primarily rhetorical. However they evolve, we would do well to examine our adversary’s strengths and weaknesses to assess the risks we take on by opposing China.

As it happens, the inventories of strengths and weaknesses for both China and Russia, two of our fundamental opponents, are remarkably similar. They are both strong militarily, but incredibly weak economically. I will write only of China here, but keep Russia in the back of your mind as we seem destined to face similar conflicts with them.

Since the list of China’s strengths is smaller than the list of their weaknesses, I will begin with their consideration first. Here they are:

1. With an authoritarian, fascist government, Chinese officials can rapidly mobilize available assets to meet perceived problems. This is incredibly important for any revisionist regime seeking to increase their sway in the world through their armed forces.
2. China has a very, very large army. According to Wikipedia, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which includes as separate branches their Ground Forces, Navy, Air Force, Rocket Force, and Strategic Support Force, is the largest armed force in the world. They have a total personnel strength of 2,285,000. In addition they have about 512,000 in their reserves. The U.S. armed forces by contrast number about half that with 1,281,900 active personnel, with 801,200 in the reserves.
3. The PLA has nuclear weapons, and the ICBMs on which to put them. China is estimated to have around 260 nuclear warheads (yield information unavailable publicly), “with an unknown number of them active and ready to deploy” according to Wikipedia. As of 2013, U.S. intelligence thought the Chinese active ICBM arsenal to be between 50 and 75 land and sea based missiles. Tactical nuclear missiles are distributed among six ballistic missile brigades, with 1,833 ballistic missiles and 350 cruise missiles. Note that there are considerably more missiles available than the estimated number of nuclear warheads.
4. China possesses a well-developed capability to launch cyber attacks against U.S. government and private computer networks, and has been exercising and practicing its use almost with impunity.

And that is pretty much all of it. It is a very impressive force, to be sure, but how well China will be able to support it in the future is questionable. Economic resources are required to keep it all running, and right now China is in very deep economic trouble.

China’s Weakness

While China’s economic weaknesses are more extensive than their military and naval strengths, they are also much more difficult to estimate. The only thing we can say about them for sure is that they are huge.

Capital allocation is a rather murky affair in China, with the Chinese government trying to direct capital flows through state-owned investment banks. It should be no surprise then that a great deal of wasted malinvestment of scarce Chinese economic resources were made. Approximately $6.8 trillions worth of waste. That is the amount estimated in a joint report by China’s National Development and Reform Commission and the Academy of Macroeconomic Research. That is about 40% of the U.S. GDP and two years of output for the entire German nation. This horrendous quantity of waste is approximately half of all Chinese investment in the years covered by the report between 2009 and 2013. It is no wonder the Chinese economy has been crashing.

Although it is extremely difficult to come up with trustworthy data on the Chinese economy, The Economist website in a May 7, 2016 essay, The coming debt bust, came up with some fascinating numbers.

The country’s debt has increased just as quickly over the past two years as in the two years after the 2008 crunch. Its debt-to-GDP ratio has soared from 150% to nearly 260% over a decade, the kind of surge that is usually followed by a financial bust or an abrupt slowdown. … Problem loans have doubled in two years and, officially, are already 5.5% of banks’ total lending. The reality is grimmer. Roughly two-fifths of new debt is swallowed by interest on existing loans; in 2014, 16% of the 1,000 biggest Chinese firms owed more in interest than they earned before tax.

The emphasis in this quote is mine. When this financial bubble pops, it is hard to imagine how China can keep anything but a small fraction of its fine military machine in good order.

Here is yet another thing for Chinese leaders to worry about. To the degree that China has prospered, it has been substantially due to foreign trade, particularly with the United States; yet even that has been suffering lately. If the Chinese leaders are injudicious enough to seriously annoy American leaders and start a trade war, the popping of their financial bubble will come all the sooner.

Is that apocryphal Chinaman who casts the curse, “May you live in interesting times,” an employee of Chinese President Xi Jinping? President Xi should fire him!

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