World Politics Review: War is Boring: New Chinese Naval Ships a Window into Evolving Strategy
David Axe
In late October, U.S.S. Kearsarge, a 40,000-ton amphibious assault ship, arrived off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago laden with hundreds of doctors, nurses and engineers, and tons of medical supplies. The tiny developing country was the fifth stop in Kearsarge’s four-month tour of Latin America, advancing a new Pentagon strategy for creating security through good deeds. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates calls it “soft power” — and it’s all the rage in a military exhausted by five years of hard combat.
The Navy’s three-dozen amphibious ships, with their extensive medical facilities, along with its two specialized hospital ships, are at the forefront of this soft-power strategy, delivering humanitarian workers across Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia. What’s more, the Navy is drafting a study reportedly calling for a 20 percent increase in the size of the amphibious fleet, partly to boost these soft-power missions.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, at the same time that Kearsarge was steaming towards Trinidad and Tobago, the Chinese navy was building its own fleet capable of soft-power “projection.” In October, the People’s Liberation Army Navy accepted its first purpose-built hospital ship, the 10,000-ton “Ship 866,” fitted with “comprehensive functions and facilities equivalent to level-three class-A hospitals,” according to People’s Daily. Ship 866 joined the fleet just three months after the acceptance of the first of six 14,000-ton Type 071 amphibious assault ships, themselves fitted with surgical bays.
To some observers, the new vessels’ acceptances have signaled Beijing’s determination to compete, or even cooperate, with Washington in the realm of soft power. Others say the vessels are intended for more conventional military tasks, but could find themselves pressed into humanitarian missions during major disasters. Either way, Ship 866 and the Type 071s are windows into an evolving military strategy for an emerging world power. In recent years, China has stepped up its investment in developing countries, especially energy-producing states in Africa. Chinese engineers and consultants are fixtures in even the most remote nations, such as Chad and Somalia.
For all that, influential naval analyst Bob Work, from the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, says Ship 866 has its roots in an event that took place in Asia: the tsunami that killed as many as 225,000 people in 11 countries bordering the Indian Ocean in 2004.
In the aftermath of that disaster, many countries rushed aid to affected countries by way of amphibious ships. China was virtually alone among major powers in having no ships capable of helping out, Work says. “The tsunami embarrassed them,” he says. “The Chinese respond to embarrassments in very focused ways.” In this case by rushing new ships into production.
Another analyst disagrees with this assessment. John Pike from the Alexandria, Virginia-based think-tank Globalsecurity.org, says Ship 866 and the Type 071s were designed to give China military options for claiming disputed natural gas and oil reserves in the South China Sea that only recently have become cost-effective for recovery. “One would enforce a claim to the South China Sea by possessing islands. How does one possess island? By amphibious assault.”
Such assaults, Pike adds, require both assault ships and the medical support provided by dedicated hospital ships. “If they were only building a hospital ship, I’d be prepared to start thinking about it on humanitarian assistance level, but when they build this [Type 071] landing ship dock simultaneously, I tend to think the decision to build them was made at the same meeting, part of a common plan” for potential island attacks.
“But you can use amphibious ships for human assistance,” Pike stresses. “The U.S. does that all the time.”
On that point, Work agrees. “It’s not an either-or thing.”
Nor is competition between the U.S. and China a foregone conclusion as both nations roll out soft-power strategies and new ships capable of advancing them. “The Chinese acknowledge our economic and military superiority. That puts us in the driver’s seat in terms of steering the relationship toward greater competition or greater collaboration,” James Blaker, from Washington-based American Security Project, wrote in a report published this month.
Blaker recommends that the U.S. Navy invite the Chinese to participate in more joint naval operations. That would be “an initial step toward expanded cooperation in other areas,” he writes.
Indeed, the U.S. Navy has used its soft-power initiatives as vehicles for international cooperation, albeit not with the Chinese — not yet. Kearsarge, on her Latin American cruise, hosted doctors and nurses from Brazil, Canada, the Netherlands and other countries.
David Axe is an independent correspondent, a World Politics Review contributing editor, and the author of “War Bots.” He blogs at War is Boring. His WPR column, “War is Boring,” appears every other Wednesday.
