China's Military Challenge to the United States

For the past 25 years, the United States has enjoyed a level of global military supremacy that has almost never been seen in human history, particularly at sea and in the air.  While this has not prevented the US military from being bogged down in wars and insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, it has meant that no state actor has dared to challenge the United States militarily since the end of the Cold War.  However, there is one power that is moving into a position to eventually challenge the US’ global military dominance, China.  This challenge from China is already in evidence in Asia, where China’s rapid military expansion is causing much consternation for the US and its allies in that region.  In the future, China has the potential to join the United States as just one of two global powers that will have the capability to project military power to any corner of the globe.

While China has more soldiers in uniform than any other country in the world, its military power on land has largely been derided due to what is perceived to be the poor quality of the average Chinese soldier.  Moreover, China’s land-based weaponry such as tanks and artillery lack the quality of those of many of China’s rivals, including the United States and Russia.  Instead, China has been focusing its efforts on boosting its military capabilities in the air and at sea, the two areas where the United States military enjoys massive advantages at present.  In the air, China has rapidly modernized its air force and is investing heavily in new technologies aimed at bridging the gap between US and Chinese warplanes.  At sea, China is rapidly expanding its fleet and is developing the capabilities to project Chinese naval power well outside of its territorial waters.  Moreover, China is developing weaponry designed to deny hostile naval forces the ability to operate in waters near to China, a direct challenge to the US navy’s massive presence in the Western Pacific.

It is in the Western Pacific that China is directly challenging the United States’ military primacy and, at the same time, alarming many of the countries of that region.  For China, this means acquiring the means to deny the US navy access to the waters of the first island chain outside of China’s maritime waters, a chain that stretches from southern Japan in the north to the Philippines, Borneo, and southern Vietnam in the south.  To do this, China is rapidly increasing its ability to destroy ships and aircraft that encroach on China’s territorial waters.  However, China’s more assertive policies in the Western Pacific have caused great concerns in many countries, leading Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and others to strengthen their defense ties with the US, a developed that has angered Beijing.  Moreover, it is likely that, as China’s air and sea capabilities expand, it will move to increase its defense presence further out into the Pacific using submarines and advanced missile systems to be able to project its power well beyond the first island chain, a development that will cause particular alarm in the United States as its dominance of these waters has been unchallenged since the end of the Second World War.

As a reborn superpower, it is highly unlikely that China’s defense presence will remain confined to its near abroad.  For example, China’s need to secure the shipping lanes for its vital natural resource imports from the Middle East and Africa has already led it to seek ports across the Indian Ocean that will be able to be used by the Chinese navy to protect these shipping lanes.  As the US navy is, for the most part, currently in control of these shipping lanes, this could lead to tensions between these two countries, despite their shared interest in facilitating the flow of these resources around the world.  Central Asia is another region in which the Chinese military is likely to expand its presence in the coming years, although this could raise tensions with Russia, another potential long-term rival of China.  As China develops blue-water naval capabilities and develops closer defense ties with countries around the world, there will be no limit on where China seeks to expand its military presence.  When the Soviet Union expanded its military presence in the 1960s and 1970s from its near abroad to regions such as Central America, Africa and the Middle East, it led to a series of proxy wars with the United States.  Should China seek to do the same, the potential for such proxy wars may rise.   Nevertheless, there is no reason to believe that a war between the United States and China must take place, for the consequences of such a war could be catastrophic.