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| Chinese ICBM Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) |
Wendell Minnick
TAIPEI – There is a possibility that China will upset the order of East Asian security, said the sixth annual China Security Report issued by the Tokyo-based National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS), dubbed “The Expanding Scope of PLA Activities and the PLA Strategy.”
Released last week, the report examines the major influences propelling military modernization in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), air force, navy, and Second Artillery Force, and the potential these influences will have on the region and on the US military’s traditional safeguarding role since World War II.
“Each of these services has its own basic strategy, and the Report analyzes the overall trend toward greater military strength accompanying efforts to put those strategies fully into effect,” wrote Tetsuo Murooka, NIDS director, Security Studies Department.
As the PLA has become more active at sea on a broader scale, it has repeatedly obstructed US military vessels and aircraft in the South China Sea, which are operating in accord with international rules. The Chinese military has stepped up realistic joint exercises in the Western Pacific and sought various ways to strengthen its capacity for nuclear deterrence directed at the US, including the deployment of new strategic nuclear submarines.
The report was written by Masafumi Iida, NIDS senior fellow, Northeast Asia Division, Regional Studies Department, with expertise in China’s foreign policy, and Shinji Yamaguchi, NIDS research fellow, Asia and Africa Division, Regional Studies Department, with expertise in civil-military relations in China and Chinese security policy.
“If the PLA were to continue its challenges to the US presence in East Asia, and if such challenges were to prove effective, the existing order of security in East Asia could change dramatically,” said the report. “And if the US should step up its actions designed to maintain that order in the face of such efforts by China, this would necessarily mean an increase in tension in their bilateral relationship.”
The report indicates that for now on, China can be expected to strengthen its presence in the offshore waters and airspace with the aim of establishing superiority in disputes over territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests. The goal is to prevent interference by the US in China’s core interests.
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