China Goes to Sea
In just one year, China has laid the keels of three advanced destroyers, seven state-of-the art frigates, two large landing platform docks, and, most likely, a new generation of corvettes. China’s naval expansion reflects a deeply entrenched sense of vulnerability, uncertainty about how other powers will react to its rise, and a growing range threats to its overseas interests.
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BRUSSELS – China has traditionally been a continental power, with Asia’s strategic rivalries and relentlessly fluctuating spheres of influence blocking its international ambitions and preventing it from becoming a dominant maritime power beyond the Taiwan Strait. Or so many have thought. Nowadays, the People’s Republic is increasingly challenging this view, having shifted its naval strategy from defending its territorial waters to guarding its Pacific frontier and securing its interests overseas.