– China as a Land Power - 從中國第五代領導人的政策觀點分析"一帶一路"計畫

Beijing has repeatedly insisted that the BRI, initially referred to as just “One Belt, One Road” in Chinese, is an “initiative” and not a “strategy”, and has in fact also explicitly discouraged the use of the words “project, program, or agenda”. Regardless of the preferred terminology, the BRI hopes to attain a vast reach over the Eurasian continent and the Indian Ocean, thus carrying significant geopolitical implications that should be seen through geopolitical lenses. The issues facing China itself which would allegedly be addressed by the BRI also play into an analysis of Chinese geopolitics, such as with regards to its energy security through the sea lines of communication or the economic inequality between its coastal and inland regions. By admission of its own

domestic academia in spite of the insistence by the PRC that the initiative is not a geopolitical strategy, the BRI possesses and requires geopolitical and strategic considerations, such as with regards to land power and sea power (Li & Li, 2015). When analyzing the BRI and taking note of the two primary components, the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the sea-based Maritime Silk Road, it is not difficult to cast the initiative against the debate of land power versus sea power, especially given the context of the objectives of both China and the BRI.

The most prominent proponent of sea power was U.S. Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), who argued in several books, most prominently The Influence of Sea Power on History which coined the term “sea power” in the study of

modern international relations, that control of the seas translates to power. Describing the sea as “a great highway; or better, perhaps, of a wide common”, then-Captain Mahan pointed out that the costs and speed of transportation has always been more efficient in maritime trade when compared to overland trade, and that the basis of international trade was thus tied closely to merchant fleets transporting goods across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with a navy of sufficient power to grant safe passage (Mahan, 1890).

By contrast, the most prominent proponent of land power was British scholar Halford John Mackinder (1861-1947), who established the Heartland Theory, most prominently in the article “The Geographical Pivot of History”, which became the basis of the understanding of land power in international relations. The eponymous Heartland includes a significant part of Russia, but also prominently includes Central Asia; its

central position to the “World Island” of Europe, Asia, and Africa would afford access to and control over resources of all three continents. Mackinder had, in fact, argued at the end of “The Geographical Pivot of History” that any possible Chinese expansion “might constitute the yellow peril to the world’s freedom just because they would add an oceanic frontage to the resources of the great continent, an advantage as yet denied to the Russian tenant of the pivot region” (Mackinder, 1904).

(Pieraccini, 2016)

Before considering whether China qualifies as a land power or sea power, it is important to understand the fundamentals of its modern geopolitics. Historically, imperial dynastic China was concentrated along the coast east of the fifteen-inch isohyet line, where abundant rainfall and favorable agricultural conditions allowed the Han ethnic group to grow in the eastern third of China. By contrast, the lands northwest of this Han heartland, occupying modern-day western China, are populated by groups considered Chinese ethnic minorities today. These regions were of great strategic and military

interest to imperial China, in part because nomadic civilizations such as the Mongols would periodically go to war against imperial China. However, it is also because the mountainous regions further inland functioned as a buffer zone against threats further inland, which China had traditionally and institutionally considered to be of greater concern (Stratfor, 2012).

The Qing dynasty eventually came to control the hinterlands, but the geographical circumstances of western China ensured that they were much poorer than the coastal east, leading to inequality and social unrest, especially in the aftermath of the invasions of China in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The aggravation of this issue provided the context in which Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China were able to garner support in China’s inland regions through the 1930’s, which would in turn ensure their victory in the Chinese Civil War. Conscious of the circumstances that gave to its rise, the CPC has thus typically been conscious of the importance of creating socioeconomic equality between coastal China and inland China, and continues to be a geopolitical imperative for the PRC (Stratfor, 2012).

Even after the Opium Wars that devastated Chinese power in the 19^th century, the first time China had been truly threatened by naval invasion relative to Japan’s unsuccessful invasion of the Korean peninsula, the Qing dynasty favored wresting Ili in Xinjiang from Russian influence over countering an encroaching Japanese presence in the Korean peninsula, prioritizing inland China over coastal China (Fairbank, 1969). And even after a devastating Japanese invasion from the sea during the Sino-Japanese Wars

and while fighting the Kuomintang during the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China focused on securing control of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, and eventually, after the civil war, Xinjiang and Tibet (Stratfor, 2012). Chinese dynasties regarded the inland regions through a military-strategic lens, while the PRC is beholden to political and economic imperatives in the region; regardless, modern China over the last two centuries has consistently considered its inland regions to be of vital geopolitical importance, especially in terms of ejecting non-Chinese or non-CPC influence, often more so than powerful maritime threats, at least until recently.

As such, historically, China has primarily been considered as a land power. As the head of the imperial Chinese tributary system, China focused on its continental neighbors for trade, most prominently Korea and Vietnam, and the ancient original overland Silk Road remains China’s most well-known trade effort (Kang, 2010). In fact, land power is considered the basis by which Chinese dynasties maintained its imperial tributary system, which maintained a relatively stable order amongst China and its surrounding

“barbarians”, and was vital for the development of the late Chinese imperial state as a trade power, in contrast to the U.S. being an economic power (Li & Li, 2015). While China has never directly controlled the eponymous heartland of Central Asia, its dynasties have historically attempted to exert either influence or direct control over modern-day Tibet and Xinjiang at the periphery of Central Asia, sometimes at the cost of sea power. By contrast, with the exception of Zheng He’s trade voyages under the Ming dynasty in the 15^th century, there have been few prominent instances of Chinese naval adventures, especially not for the projection of power. The prominent naval forces

developed during the Song dynasty to resist the Mongol invasion were appropriated by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, but would eventually be scrapped under the Ming dynasty to focus on defending against continued inland threats once again (Fairbank, 1969). In more contemporary times, Chinese designs for becoming a maritime power are also hampered, despite having a coastline that stretches for almost fifteen thousand kilometers, by geography; the Chinese coastline is surrounded by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and various Southeast Asian states, many of which form the “first island chain” and, despite robust economic and trade relations, harbor a sense of varying degrees of wariness towards Chinese political ambitions in the region, which could hamper Chinese regional goals (Kaplan, 2010). It is telling that even the most prominent domestic proponents of Chinese sea power recognize that Chinese sea power is and will be fundamentally limited by China’s inherent geographical realities (Zhang W. , 2003).

Mackinder’s Heartland Theory found purchase through much of the 20^th century, in both World Wars and then during the Cold War, where a counter or at least containment of Russian power was persistently sought by the West. However, there is today an inclination within the international relations discipline to favor Mahan’s theory of sea power over Mackinder’s theory of land power, in no doubt helped by the victory of American sea power over Russian land power at the end of the Cold War and the capability of the United States to control international trade through the Navy’s dominance across the world’s oceans, and the navy’s ability to deter attacks from overseas (Friedman, The Next 100 Years, 2009). Having learned from these lessons, there are also signs that China is seeking an increase in their own sea power. There has

been an increasing trend of consciousness within the PRC in general and the People’s Liberation Army Navy in particular which speaks of a need to safeguard China’s maritime interests in order to guarantee its prosperity (Zhang W. , 2012). Continuing feuds with neighboring states over control of the South China Sea remain one of the most significant items in international relations with regards to China. The commissioning of China’s first aircraft carrier Liaoning in 2012 spoke clearly of China’s intentions of joining the club of countries with aircraft carriers. Xi Jinping himself stated to the Politburo in July 2013 that China needed to “continually do more to promote China’s efforts to become a maritime power” (Martinson, 2015).

However, the argument of land power versus sea power is not necessarily a universalist debate. Mackinder’s Heartland Theory in its original form was written from the perspective of British policy towards Eurasia, a premise difficult to apply to the United States an ocean away, which used the Heartland Theory mostly as a basis of a strategy to contain Russia as opposed to attaining power. Similarly, a landlocked country such as Switzerland would have little stake in the theories of sea power. Xi’s insistence to the Politburo that China needs to “become a maritime power” further supports the view that the Chinese leadership does not actually consider the country at present to be a maritime power; it would thus not be difficult to argue that China is and has historically been a land power, nor would it be difficult to argue that China would continue to play to their strengths at present, especially given the term limits of the Xi administration.

This is not to diminish the importance of China’s maritime ambitions, nor to diminish the position that the Maritime Silk Road plays in the BRI. There is every indication that the Chinese fifth-generation leadership is determined to transform China into a maritime power for its security interests. There has been a change of thinking as early as 2012 that suggested that China has devoted too much emphasis on “maintaining stability” with its neighbors, and that it instead needs to maintain its maritime rights instead (Wang & Luo, 國際體系轉型與中國周邊外交之變:從維穩到維權 (Guojitixi Zhuanxing Yu Zhongguo Zhoubianwaijiao Zhibian: Cong Weiwen Dao Weiquan, The Transformation of the International System and Changes to China's Peripheral Diplomacy: From Maintaining Stability to Maintaining Rights), 2013). However, from the perspective of the fifth-generation leadership, the goals of the Silk Road Economic Belt are more imminently and immediately achievable compared to the Maritime Silk Road, which should be considered a long-term, cross-generational investment. Unless the Xi administration breaks traditions, the fifth-generation leadership of the PRC will be stepping down in 2023 after serving two five-year terms, with Xi ending his second term as general secretary in November 2022 and as president in March 2023.

While no specific metric has been officially and publicly proposed by the PRC as to the milestones or extent to which the PRC intends to develop its sea power, the domestic academic literature in China, particularly that of the Chinese “sea power school”, provides several hints. To facilitate China’s “peaceful rise” or “peaceful rejuvenation”, the development of Chinese sea power should primarily be focused on safeguarding the sovereignty of the PRC. However, such literature, such as from

prominent Chinese sea power proponent Zhang Wenmu, concedes that while Chinese sea power should always be “limited” to self-defense, it has the “unlimited” scope of China’s overseas interests, especially when safeguarding China’s increasingly important energy security, and that such sea power is fundamentally military in nature. This includes not only the goals of “national unification” to break the first island chain that “contains”

China from the Pacific Ocean, but also to guarantee Chinese energy imports that come in mostly from the Indian Ocean (Zhang W. , 2003). Furthermore, it is suggested that for China to develop sea power, it must have both military sea power, denoting a state’s wartime naval capabilities, and comprehensive sea power, which encompasses political and economic factors; a state cannot have one without the other (Zhang W. , 2012).

Putting aside the geopolitical dimensions of sea power that the Xi administration desperately wishes to avoid when speaking of the BRI, if the Maritime Silk Road represents China’s hope to develop comprehensive sea power, then contemporary Chinese literature on the subject insists that there must also exist a security and military element, specifically in the form of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, and especially against possible unfriendly U.S. action.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy faces limitations in its goals of creating a naval buffer zone beyond China’s shores and guaranteeing energy security in the Indian Ocean through which it receives most of its energy imports. With the former, China faces polities wary of its increasing influence, including Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines, among others, most of which are aligned with the United States. With the latter, Chinese power projection into the Indian Ocean, which must contend with a regional rival in the

form of India, is considered to be very limited, necessitating plans to eventually deploy two carrier battle groups into the region (Mahadevan, 2014). With that in mind, the Liaoning, China’s first aircraft carrier purchased from the Soviet Union, has largely

functioned as a training vessel despite claims in late 2016 that it is combat-ready (Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2015). Meanwhile, China’s next aircraft carrier, the CV-17, is not expected to be commissioned into service until 2020 (Farley, 2016).

However, despite rivaling the United States Navy in the number of vessels, there are significant doubts with regards to the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s capacity to rival the United States Navy on an institutional level (Friedman, The State of the World:

Assessing China's Strategy, 2012). More pertinently for the Maritime Silk Road, India, not the United States, seems more poised to pose a threat to China’s rising sea power;

New Delhi’s opposition and wariness towards the BRI may make India more of a candidate than the U.S. when it comes to maritime rivals for China (Kantha, 2017). This is especially relevant as India has been engaged in significant efforts to remodel its navy specifically to counter Chinese naval vessels, evident with its February 2017 TROPEX military exercise that seems geared towards combating Chinese submarines in the Indian Ocean Region (Gady, 2017).

Just as interesting is the navy’s lack of large-scale investments into logistics replenishment vessels, suggesting that China is relying on maritime diplomacy to secure friendly ports in the Indian Ocean region that may accept PLAN vessels, just as PLAN vessels docked in the ostensibly commercial Colombo International Container Terminal in Sri Lanka in September and October of 2014 (Mahadevan, 2014). Similarly, three

years later in 2017, Sri Lanka turned down a PLAN submarine requesting to dock at Colombo, allegedly due to Indian pressure (Aneez & Sirilal, 2017), thus further suggesting that developments on land rather than by sea are what drives Chinese interests in the Indian Ocean region Similarly, while construction of the Chinese naval base in Djibouti, which China insists on labeling as a “support facility”, is not yet complete, it has already engaged in “replenishment” operations for at least one PLAN vessel, the missile frigate Hengyang, in early 2017, thus relying on land-based naval facilities in friendly states to extend the reach of the PLAN while “true” blue-water navy capabilities are being developed (Huang P. , Chinese naval escort ship arrives at Djibouti for replenishment, 2017). Ultimately, however, the PLAN is unable to provide sea control over the sea lines of communication in the near future, which puts into question Chinese maritime ambitions in relations to energy security within the scope of the fifth-generation leadership, and thus lending more credence to the theory of Chinese land power, especially where the BRI is concerned (Wu S.-s. , 2017).

Putting aside the PLAN’s capacity building, there are also counterarguments to the projection of sea power to protect both China’s sea lines of communications and its ability to guarantee energy security through the Indian Ocean and the Malacca Strait.

Namely, while the arguments for sea power highlight the dangers of foreign hostile action, particularly that from the United States, that might choke China’s maritime energy supply, the international community has largely been supportive of China’s economic and industrial growth, and “there have been no reported incidents of embargos being imposed by an exporting country or a third party”, certainly not for “politically motivated reasons”

since China became a net importer of oil in 1993 (Zha, 2005). In other words, much of the arguments proposed by China’s sea power school ultimately amount to a worst-case scenario that historically has not actually been proven true in nearly a quarter of a century since China became a net importer of oil, concurrent with China’s security concerns with the U.S. and India. It can thus be argued that China’s energy security issues, at least at present, do not revolve around whether or not oil bound for China can be intercepted by naval powers, but whether or not China can import enough efficiently to meet its domestic energy requirements. This is not to say that the concerns of the Chinese “sea power school” are misguided or misplaced, only that it is less urgent relative to other crises and dilemmas that the fifth-generation leadership may face.

By contrast, while there is the tacit acknowledgement of security issues with regards to Tibet and Xinjiang, China’s domestic academic literature on land power largely shies away from security issues and focuses instead on economics, development, and diplomacy (Zhang W. , 2012). Such literature often explicitly shies away from what is termed as a “hegemonic military-strategic perspective”, and instead insists on

“returning” to China’s historic strength of developing land power through economic connections for peaceful growth that would, in turn, build on China’s “sea, air, space, and information power” (Ye, 2007). These are, by all indications, far more congruent with the themes that the Xi administration wishes to focus on with regards to the BRI, at least more so than topics of security and defense surrounding the requirements of sea power, especially with the constant refrain of how the BRI is not a geopolitical strategy. At the

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