Over the past five years, the Chinese Navy has been expanding its forays across the globe; the number of its maritime deployments is growing beyond the East and South China seas, which are its home stretch.
Within the South China Sea, the Chinese vessels have been reaching as far south of the Sunda Strait to conduct exercises close to Christmas Island. And in the Indian Ocean, the Chinese naval presence is expanding in terms of patrols by nuclear and diesel submarines besides the regular anti-piracy missions.
These forays have exposed the Chinese navy’s soft underbelly – infrastructure limitations particularly in terms of sustaining a fleet at sea, and long –distance deployments.
China is addressing the issue with a three-pronged strategy. It is stepping up investment to build replenishment vessels at shipyards in Guangzhou. “The proven Type 903 is likely to be the mainstay of the Chinese replenishment fleet and will eventually replace the obsolete Fuqing-class vessels that first entered service in the 1980s”, , according to Chinese watchers, who note that China is deploying civilian tankers to bridge the demand-supply gap.
Simultaneously, China is seeking to enhance the number of foreign ports available to its vessels for replenishment and maintenance. It is in this context Colombo port has become important for the Chinese Navy though Beijing is generally "downplaying the military aspect" of Chinese presence in ports away from home.
While on the issue, the Stratfor points out that the frequent visits by Chinese naval vessels to ports away from home are “portrayed as just that — visits, rather than the establishment of a logistical support network that already spans the Indian Ocean”.
It adds: “Beijing seems very concerned about the perception of Chinese naval expansion and is trying to keep a low profile in most port locations. This reticence also seems to be a main reason why, at least for now, China is not pushing to develop these resupply nodes into full-fledged naval bases”.
Here is a list of some ports that have either been visited by the Chinese navy or earmarked for further development with Yuans.
Sri Lanka: China is building Hambantota port. Its submarines regularly visit Colombo port, and its container terminal. The Chinese submarine Changzheng-2 and the warship Chang Xing Dao arrived at Colombo on a five-day visit from October 31. This followed another visit by a submarine of a similar type in mid-September, and created new irritant in Sri Lanka- India relations.
Bangladesh: The Chittagong port which is getting Chinese aid for its development, has hosted Chinese naval vessels on shore visits.
Myanmar: Chinese naval vessels have been regularly making calls at Yangon harbour for the past four years.
Pakistan: China has built a deep-water port at Gwadar on the Balochistan coast as a part of its string of pearls strategy. The port was opened in 2007; China is developing an economic corridor linking Gwadar with its Xinxiang province.
Nearer home in North Korea, China has taken on lease two ports, Chongjin and Rajin. And in Africa, its vessels have been regular visitors to Seychelles, Namibia, Angola, South Africa (Cape Town), Mozambique (Maputo) and Yemen (Port of Aden) while Djibouti and Salalah port (Oman) have become key logistical nodes for naval deployments in the Gulf of Aden.
China has invested in the development of Kenya’s Lamu port. It is setting up a container terminal at Namibia’s Walvis Bay, and is building Tanzania’s Bagamoyo port, north of Dar-es-Salaam. Chinese navy has carried out joint military exercises with Nigeria, and Tanzania.
All these developments lend credence to Pentagon’s view that multiple objectives of Chinese as they are enlarging their operational reach beyond the South China Sea and the eastern part of Indian Ocean include long-distance mobility and logistics, joint air-ground, and joint air-naval operations under realistic, high-tech conditions, and a series of amphibious landing operations in network-centric scenario.
Pentagon’s assessment (2014) is that China will induct nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR); already it has three JIN-class SSBNs (Type 094) in the region.
“Over the next decade five more JIN-class nuclear-powered SSBNs are likely to be added”, the report to US Congress said.
Both the JIN-class and the JL-2 will give the Chinese Navy its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent since the JIN-class can carry submarine-launched ballistic missile with a range of 7,400 km.
The message is clear.
– by Malladi Rama Rao
