The coming Global Backlash against China

INTERVIEW/ Philip Davidson: China’s advances show ‘erosion’ in U.S.-Japan deterrence​

WASHINGTON--China’s military advances and enhanced capabilities underscore the “erosion” of conventional deterrence that U.S. and Japanese forces have provided in the region, Adm. Philip Davidson, who was commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) until this April, warned.

In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Davidson stressed that INDOPACOM’s plan to build a network of precision-strike missiles along the first island chain, which stretches from Okinawa Prefecture through Taiwan and the Philippines, would enhance the conventional deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region.

At a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in March, Davidson drew broad attention when he said that China could take control of Taiwan “in the next six years.”

“China is closing the gap it perceives in capability and capacity of the U.S.,” he said in the interview, citing four reasons for his view.

Firstly, he said, China is investing in fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons.

Secondly, it is advancing its training in and around the Senkaku Islands, Taiwan and the South China Sea, Davidson said.

Thirdly, he cited China’s reorganization in 2016 of its forces into a joint structure, which has added leverage to their training.

And fourthly, China is advancing combat support capabilities for logistics and sustainment, he said.

The advances in ballistic and hypersonic missile technology “is really changing the security paradigm,” Davidson said.

He said his assessment of the timing of the Chinese threat “in the next six years” was also based on “(Chinese President) Xi Jinping’s own political ambitions and the potential or non-potential of transition (into his fourth presidency) in 2027.”

Davidson told the Senate Armed Services Committee that it was necessary to reassess the U.S. “strategic ambiguity” policy toward Taiwan.

“At that time, I (spoke) as a strategist (and) set aside my role as the INDOPACOM commander,” he told The Asahi Shimbun. “I think you should always be assessing strategy.”

However, he added, “In the last few months, I think there has been a review of the policy of strategic ambiguity, when it comes to Taiwan, and it’s been determined that that should be sustained, and I am in full support of that.”

He further explained his views of INDOPACOM’s plan to build a network of ground-based missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometers along the first island chain against the development of the Chinese military power.

“You cannot deter by defense alone,” Davidson said. “An adversary has to know that there is punishment in the offing that would drive up their cost--and all those costs are economic and military and diplomatic and internal security, all those kinds of things.”

He also said that broad discussions in the United States have been held on a concept known as “distributed operations,” which would improve the survivability of all U.S. assets, such as ships and bases.

The plan, which is based on this concept, “improves the deterrent value and the posture of the U.S. forces in the region,” he said.

However, “I understand that … this is a profound policy decision for some nations in the region. There’s no doubt about it,” Davidson said.

He declined to comment on the potential deployment of intermediate-range missiles to Japan. “I won’t speak for Japan. Japan is going to make its own strategic choices.”

He added: “We have been talking about having the capabilities within the first island chain and the second island chain. And the conditions in which you would deploy these things, that’s an important calculus for, I think, Japan’s security establishment, and (for) Japan to make on their own accord.”

Davidson also answered questions related to a possible Taiwan Strait crisis.

About preparations of Japan’s Self Defense Forces for such a scenario, he said, “We need to continue to make missile defense investments, both in the United States, and that would be my recommendation to the Japanese Self-Defense Forces as well.”

He noted that capability in terms of numbers of ships and aircraft will be important in the event of a Taiwan crisis.

“I think just the activity of Chinese flight penetrations, Chinese fishing vessels, Chinese activities in and around the Senkakus and in and around western Japan indicates how important having ready fighters that can respond is, and how important having ships that are there,” Davidson said.

In the interview, Davison gave a high opinion of AUKUS, a new security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly because it would provide nuclear-powered submarine technology to Australia.

Regarding the Quad, a security dialogue between the United States, Japan, Australia and India, Davidson said: “It’s not just a security alignment; it is an opportunity to lead on the issues of economic concern in the region, diplomatic concern in the region, security concern in the region.

“The United States, Japan, India and Australia, coming together on an issue like that or with understanding of the opportunity that’s before them, to help in the region and potentially even globally, I think is incredibly important,” he said.

The alignments through the Quad and AUKUS are “the backbone that binds us together with our security concerns,” he continued. “I hope it encourages others to come together for those who are in favor of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Davidson also referred to the threat of North Korea’s development of its missile and nuclear capabilities.

“I would say North Korea represents the most immediate threat in the region, certainly and in many respects to the United States, in the near term,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that North Korea does not see itself as the source of instability that is in Northeast Asia. And their behaviors actually alarm not only Japan, the United States and the Republic of Korea, but China and others in the region as well.”

Davidson emphasized the importance of collaboration and cooperation between the United States, Japan and South Korea to enhance their missile defense capability and deepen their interoperability.
 
China’s six wars in the next 50 years
In a recent post, I introduced a new PRC book entitled ‘China Is Not Afraid — New Threats to National Security and Our Strategic Responses’, (中国不怕——国防安全新威胁与我们的战略应对). I suggested that the volume is part of a larger PLA strategy to invigorate and bolster the morale of domestic constituencies, both military and otherwise, as well as being intended to serve as a warning to any foreign powers which might seek to constrain or restrict China. It’s perhaps worthwhile further extending this analysis to two other PLA-inspired products, one a film and the other a newsagency article, to explore what sort of agenda these works are promoting.


The Chinese film Silent Contest (较量无声) was controversial as soon as it appeared on Chinese and global websites in October. By the end of that month, the film was being deleted from PRC websites without any official pronouncements as to the reasons for its appearance or disappearance. The film is still available in various iterations (video) on YouTube.


Highly polemical, and set against a rousing soundtrack, the film suggests that the United States is trying to subvert China through five avenues: (1) undermining China politically, (2) engaging in cultural infiltration, (3) warfare in terms of ideas, (4) the training of fifth column agents and (5) the fostering of opposition forces within China. The overall message is that the United States seeks not simply to dismember China but aims to find ways to take it under control. Frank Ching notes a strong anti-Hong Kong democrat aspect in the film, amid an implicit fear that a Hong Kong–Taiwan–US alliance could destabilize the PRC. The film’s intended audiences are certainly the domestic military and civilian constituencies, and it aims to be rousing and to induce indignity and anger. Reactions within China have varied (video), from the obviously supportive to the derisory.


The PLA was intimately involved in the making of the film. More specifically, the National Defence University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, which is subordinate to the Ministry of State Security, participated in the production of the film earlier this year. Without doubt, it is a reaction to the US ‘pivot’ to Asia and the increased American engagement with the region since 2011, but obviously has deeper roots. With such a range of august national institutions being involved in the production of the film, it might be suggested that the rather extreme sentiments expressed therein are not restricted to some hawkish elements in the PLA.


A more troubling example of irredentism can be seen in an article which appeared on the website of the Chinese news agency Zhongguo Xinwenshe (Chinese, English translation here) in July this year. Entitled ‘Revealing the Six Wars China Must Fight in the Coming 50 Years’ (曝光中国在未来50年里必打的六场战争), the article is another manifestation of the hyper-nationalist attitude seen within some parts of the PLA. However, that an article of this nature was carried by a PRC national news agency suggests that it was approved at a very high level.


The six ‘inevitable’ wars suggested in the article’s title are presented in the chronological order in which they will take place:


  1. The war to unify Taiwan (2020–2025)
  2. The war to recover the various islands of the South China Sea (2025–2030)
  3. The war to recover southern Tibet (2035–2040)
  4. The war to recover Diaoyutai and the Ryukyus (2040–2045)
  5. The war to unify Outer Mongolia (2045–2050)
  6. The war to recover the territory seized by Russia (2055–2060)

Claims to Taiwan have been a part of PRC policy since 1949, and military action has never been ruled out, but a specific timetable for such action has never been suggested. In a remarkable coincidence, the Taiwan military has just announced that the PRC will have the military capacity to take Taiwan by 2020. In terms of a South China Sea war, little imagination is needed to see the current argy-bargy in the region extending into a military conflict. Regarding the third proposed war, China’s claims to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (PDF) have been a thorn in China-India relations for decades, but the extent of Chinese claims over Tibetan cultural areas in the Himalayas remains unspecified.


Claims to Diaoyutai/Senkaku have filled the press of late, so again little creative power is needed to see this situation descending into war. China’s very recent declaration of a ‘maritime air defense zone’ will also certainly exacerbate tensions. Regarding the Ryukyus (the Okinawa island chain), Chinese scholars were seeking the ‘return’ of these islands to China in the 1920s, so this certainly isn’t a new claim. Meanwhile, Chinese claims to what’s today the nation of Mongolia derive from Qing dynasty control of this region and again have been part of Chinese territorial claims since the Republic of China was established in 1912. The same is true of the Russian Far East territories, which many Chinese see as having been unjustly occupied by the Russians.


None of the above wars are endorsed by current PRC policies, and some Chinese claim that the article represents only the views of radical hyper-nationalists. However, the claims to territories which this article avers need to be ‘recovered’ through warfare are long-standing and are remarkably congruent with a 1938 map of ‘China’s shame’ authorised by the Ministry of the Interior of the Republican Government which shows the areas torn from China by imperialists—European and Japanese. (See map below) The ‘lost’ Chinese territories on this map include not only the Russian Far East, the Ryukyus, Taiwan and the South China Sea, but also Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, Myanmar, Nepal, parts of Pakistan and most of Central Asia.


Chinese 'national map of shame' (1938)Observing how these explicit Chinese claims on territories well beyond the borders of present-day China extend back 70 or more years, and in reading some of the hyper-nationalist rhetoric such as the article cited, we might well excuse the populace of the areas subject to these historical claims from feeling quite as threatened and insecure as apparently do some people in the PRC.