China builds up strategic sea lanes

The Washington Times ^ | January 18, 2005 | Bill Gertz

[Paul Ross]

China is building up military forces and setting up bases along sea lanes from the Middle East to project its power overseas and protect its oil shipments, according to a previously undisclosed internal report prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

[Paul Ross]

Timely reminder of Chinese strategic movements under-the-radar while Ronald N. Montaperto, who pooh-poohed all these developments... gets busted as Chinese Mole...

[Paul Ross]

The article hasn't been posted yet on FR, and nicely summarizes the Pentagon report as follows:

"China is building strategic relationships along the sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea in ways that suggest defensive and offensive positioning to protect China's energy interests, but also to serve broad security objectives," said the report sponsored by the director, Net Assessment, who heads Mr. Rumsfeld's office on future-oriented strategies.

The Washington Times obtained a copy of the report, titled "Energy Futures in Asia," which was produced by defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

The internal report stated that China is adopting a "string of pearls" strategy of bases and diplomatic ties stretching from the Middle East to southern China that includes a new naval base under construction at the Pakistani port of Gwadar.

Beijing already has set up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar in the country's southwest corner, the part nearest the Persian Gulf. The post is monitoring ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea, the report said. Other "pearls" in the sea-lane strategy include:

• Bangladesh: China is strengthening its ties to the government and building a container port facility at Chittagong. The Chinese are "seeking much more extensive naval and commercial access" in Bangladesh.

• Burma: China has developed close ties to the military regime in Rangoon and turned a nation wary of China into a "satellite" of Beijing close to the Strait of Malacca, through which 80 percent of China's imported oil passes.

China is building naval bases in Burma and has electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal and near the Strait of Malacca. Beijing also supplied Burma with "billions of dollars in military assistance to support a de facto military alliance," the report said.

•Cambodia: China signed a military agreement in November 2003 to provide training and equipment. Cambodia is helping Beijing build a railway line from southern China to the sea.

•South China Sea: Chinese activities in the region are less about territorial claims than "protecting or denying the transit of tankers through the South China Sea," the report said.

China also is building up its military forces in the region to be able to "project air and sea power" from the mainland and Hainan Island. China recently upgraded a military airstrip on Woody Island and increased its presence through oil drilling platforms and ocean survey ships.

•Thailand: China is considering funding construction of a $20 billion canal across the Kra Isthmus that would allow ships to bypass the Strait of Malacca. The canal project would give China port facilities, warehouses and other infrastructure in Thailand aimed at enhancing Chinese influence in the region, the report said.

The report reflects growing fears in the Pentagon about China's long-term development. Many Pentagon analysts believe China's military buildup is taking place faster than earlier estimates, and that China will use its power to project force and undermine U.S. and regional security.

The U.S. military's Southern Command produced a similar classified report in the late 1990s that warned that China was seeking to use commercial port facilities around the world to control strategic "chokepoints."

A Chinese company with close ties to Beijing's communist rulers holds long-term leases on port facilities at either end of the Panama Canal.

The Pentagon report said China, by militarily controlling oil shipping sea lanes, could threaten ships, "thereby creating a climate of uncertainty about the safety of all ships on the high seas."

The report noted that the vast amount of oil shipments through the sea lanes, along with growing piracy and maritime terrorism, prompted China, as well as India, to build up naval power at "chokepoints" along the sea routes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea.

"China ... is looking not only to build a blue-water navy to control the sea lanes, but also to develop undersea mines and missile capabilities to deter the potential disruption of its energy supplies from potential threats, including the U.S. Navy, especially in the case of a conflict with Taiwan," the report said.

Chinese weapons for sea-lane control include new warships equipped with long-range cruise missiles, submarines and undersea mines, the report said. China also is buying aircraft and long-range target acquisition systems, including optical satellites and maritime unmanned aerial vehicles.

The focus on the naval buildup is a departure from China's past focus on ground forces, the report said.

"The Iraq war, in particular, revived concerns over the impact of a disturbance in Middle Eastern supplies or a U.S. naval blockade," the report said, noting that Chinese military leaders want an ocean-going navy and "undersea retaliatory capability to protect the sea lanes."

China believes the U.S. military will disrupt China's energy imports in any conflict over Taiwan, and sees the United States as an unpredictable country that violates others' sovereignty and wants to "encircle" China, the report said.

Beijing's leaders see access to oil and gas resources as vital to economic growth and fear that stalled economic growth could cause instability and ultimately the collapse of their nation of 1.3 billion people.

Energy demand, particularly for oil, will increase sharply in the next 20 years — from 75 million barrels per day last year to 120 million barrels in 2025 — with Asia consuming 80 percent of the added 45 million barrels, the report said.

Eighty percent of China's oil currently passes through the Strait of Malacca, and the report states that China believes the sea area is "controlled by the U.S. Navy."

Chinese President Hu Jintao recently stated that China faces a "Malacca Dilemma" — the vulnerability of its oil supply lines from the Middle East and Africa to disruption.

Oil-tanker traffic through the Strait, which is closest to Indonesia, is projected to grow from 10 million barrels a day in 2002 to 20 million barrels a day in 2020, the report said.

Chinese specialists interviewed for the report said the United States has the military capability to cut off Chinese oil imports and could "severely cripple" China by blocking its energy supplies.

[Jeff Head]

Not to mention what they are doing far from their own shores in places like the Panama Canal, the Carribean, South Amnerica, in the middle of the Pacific (Tarawa), and eslewhere either directly or by proxy.

[SueRae]

I hope we're doing more than watchful waiting.

I don't understand why this type of report is available for public release, though.

[johnny7]

Just wondering what course China would take... should a coalition-of-the-willing finally announce it's time to strike Iran. I'd keep my ears open to hear what Russia has to say also.

War... and winds of war.

[Petey139]

Probably if all their Oil was guaranteed to them or atleast a acceptable amount, They would maybe turn a blind eye.

[johnny7]

They would maybe turn a blind eye.

Not if they had other aspirations in the Pacific... quite the opposite. Those ports they're building are to expand influence.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

In the sense that it takes a lot of boats to patrol pirate infested waters, at least this means the Chinese are starting to pull their weight a bit.

That China wishes to secure its shipping lanes (which are often filled with goods going to America) is not really suprising or too much of a call for alarm. There is nothing overtly threatening in what China is doing other than to be a rising power that is neither a democracy nor remotely transparent.

[DesScorp]

"Probably if all their Oil was guaranteed to them or atleast a acceptable amount, They would maybe turn a blind eye."

And if we had just let Japan have all the oil and scrap they wanted in WW II, they would have left China and the rest of Asia alone, right?

I should not have to tell a conservative that appeasing aggressor (and China is moving in that direction fast) never, ever works.

[Androcles]

True. China's actions - while they should be carefully monitored - are exactly what any rising power which doesn't wish to depend on others for their most vital interests would do.

[Paul Ross]

In the sense that it takes a lot of boats to patrol pirate infested waters, at least this means the Chinese are starting to pull their weight a bit.

China has been, for all practical purposes, the "state sponsor" of International piracy. It has even openly taken oil from tankers that their pirates deliver to their ports, and point-blank refused to either return it or pay the owners for it after returning the vessels.

It is rather unlikely they will aggressively stomp out (for real) that which they surreptitiously conduct. All is fair in trade and war. War by other means.

That China wishes to secure its shipping lanes (which are often filled with goods going to America) is not really suprising or too much of a call for alarm. There is nothing overtly threatening in what China is doing other than to be a rising power that is neither a democracy nor remotely transparent.

We should be wary of any such sanguine assessments of a serious increase in their geo-positioning and increased armaments. This is one character who pushed the same:

July 14, 2006

Notes from the Pentagon

Damage assessment
Congress has been asked to conduct a damage assessment of the intelligence compromise caused by former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst Ronald N. Montaperto, who pleaded guilty last month to illegally retaining classified information and who told investigators he passed secrets to China.

"I am deeply concerned about the damage that has been done by Ronald N. Montaperto to our country's formulation and implementation of foreign policy related to the People's Republic of China [PRC]," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican and chairman of the House International Relations oversight and investigations subcommittee.

Mr. Rohrabacher stated in a letter to David M. Walker, the chief of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), that the agency should check policy documents that were "prepared and influenced" by Montaperto and that affected U.S. policy toward China.

The July 6 letter also asked GAO to investigate propaganda themes Montaperto supported throughout his career in speeches, scholarly work and conference roles.

Montaperto was a senior China analyst at DIA who came under suspicion of being a Chinese spy in 1991 but who continued to hold a security clearance at the National Defense University and U.S. Pacific Command until his dismissal in 2004.

"In addition, I need to know whether he was in a position of authority that enabled him to hire and/or fire employees whose views concerning the PRC differed from his," Mr. Rohrabacher stated, noting that the review should include Montaperto's role in analysis of Chinese intentions.

The report was requested "as soon as possible" in both classified and unclassified forms.

According to court papers, Montaperto admitted during a ruse by FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents that he passed top-secret information to Chinese military intelligence officer Yu Zenghe.

Friends of Montaperto in the U.S. intelligence and policy communities have sought to defend the former analyst and have criticized the FBI. One of the supporters, Lonnie Henley, deputy national intelligence officer for East Asia, recently defended Montaperto in an e-mail and as a result has come under scrutiny by the office of Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Your post is perhaps a good example of the saying, "just because I am paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me."

[Paul Ross]

Just because you're paranoid...okay, I'll believe you. :-)

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

I am not the one who is paranoid.

[Paul Ross]

I am not the one who is paranoid.

Could have fooled me with your tag line.

[Paul Ross]

FYI Pinging.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Oh yeah. That.

I think it is kind of catchy. Don't you?

[RightWhale]

why this type of report is available for public release

It is for those who wonder what China needs an ocean fleet for.

[Kuehn12]

We have heard this before, this only recycled Anti-Chinese rhetoric.