Showing posts with label navy. Show all posts

Monday, April 1, 2013

Korean Peninsula. Foal Eagle 2013. China Mobilizing.

Navy moves ship off coast of Korean Peninsula, White House looks to 'reassure' allies

Published April 01, 2013

FoxNews.com

Dec. 5, 2010: The guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain approaches the aircraft carrier USS George Washington for a fueling at sea. (Navy)

The U.S. military has moved a Navy ship capable of intercepting missiles to waters off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, as threats from North Korea's Kim Jong Un escalate and the White House signals it wants to head off any potential conflict by flexing America's military might.

A U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News that the Navy had moved the U.S. destroyer to a location near South Korea. The ship, the USS McCain, is equipped with the Aegis defense system and is capable of shooting down missiles. Officials initially misidentified the ship but later clarified the USS McCain had been dispatched.

The defense official said the decision is not part of the ongoing joint military exercise with South Korea but part of the Navy's general movements. The Navy had the same type of ship in this location as recently as December.

But, the positioning comes after the Pentagon dispatched two F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea to join Seoul forces in a training exercise, and after other demonstrations of U.S. capability last week.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that Kim Jong Un's steadily escalating threats follow a "pattern," but one that must be taken seriously. He said the U.S. is now taking "prudent" measures to "reassure our allies, demonstrate our resolve to the North and reduce pressure on Seoul to take unilateral action."

This would include efforts to boost missile defense, last week's rare flight of B-2 bombers to South Korea and likely the decision Sunday to deploy F-22 Raptors to Osan Air Base in South Korea.

With analysts warning that the biggest threat from North Korea is that it could start a war by going too far and provoking South Korea, Carney suggested the shows of strength are aimed at deterring the North from crossing that line.

"We believe this has reduced the chance of miscalculation and provocation," Carney said of the B-2 flights and other actions.

Carney, though, said that despite the "harsh rhetoric" out of Pyongyang, the U.S. is not seeing changes to the country's "military posture," such as any "large-scale" mobilizations or positioning of forces.

"This pattern of bellicose rhetoric is not new, it is familiar," Carney said. "We take it very seriously, we take prudent measures in response to it."

The F-22 flight came after North Korea warned that the Korean Peninsula had entered "a state of war."

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed to Fox News that the F-22 Raptors were deployed to Osan Air Base in South Korea from Japan on Sunday to support ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills.

"This exercise has been planned for some time and is part of the air component of the Foal Eagle exercise," spokesman George Little told reporters Monday.

Border Patrol

China mobilizing troops, jets near Korea

BY: Bill Gertz
April 1, 2013 2:30 pm

China has placed military forces on heightened alert in the northeastern part of the country as tensions mount on the Korean peninsula following recent threats by Pyongyang to attack, U.S. officials said.

Reports from the region reveal the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently increased its military posture in response to the heightened tensions, specifically North Korea’s declaration of a “state of war” and threats to conduct missile attacks against the United States and South Korea.

According to the officials, the PLA has stepped up military mobilization in the border region with North Korea since mid-March, including troop movements and warplane activity.

China’s navy also conducted live-firing naval drills by warships in the Yellow Sea that were set to end Monday near the Korean peninsula, in apparent support of North Korea, which was angered by ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills that are set to continue throughout April.

North Korea, meanwhile, is mobilizing missile forces, including road-mobile short- and medium-range missiles, according to officials familiar with satellite imagery of missile bases.

The missile activity is believed to be North Korea’s response to the ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises that last week included highly publicized flights by two B-2 strategic nuclear bombers near North Korean territory as part of annual military exercises.

North Korea’s government announced last week that since March 26 its missile and artillery forces have been placed on the highest alert status.

Specifically, Nodong medium-range missiles and their mobile launchers were spotted in satellite imagery, the officials said.

There are also indications North Korea will soon conduct a flight test of its new KN-08 road-mobile ICBM or its intermediate-range Musudan mobile missile. Test preparations had been detected in the past, the officials said.

A military provocation by North Korean forces against the South is not expected while the current war games are underway in South Korea, officials said.

However, the situation remains dangerous as hostilities could break out as a result of a miscalculation. South Korea’s government has said it would respond to any North Korean military provocation with force.

The Chinese military activities near North Korea were detected in Jilin Province, and intelligence reports from the area on March 19 indicated that PLA forces were ordered to go to “Level One” alert status, the highest level of readiness.

Large groups of soldiers were seen on the streets in Ji’an, a city in Jilin, amid reports that the PLA had been ordered to combat readiness status.

PLA heavy armored vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, were reported moving near the Yalu River that separates China from North Korea.

The troops were part of the 190th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, stationed in Benxi, in Liaoning Province. The movements are believed to be related to increased tensions in Korea.

Additionally, PLA troops and military vehicles were seen near Baishan, in Jilin province, around March 21.

Low-flying PLA air force jets, believed to be fighters, also were heard and seen at several border locations in China, including Yanji and Yanbian in Jilin, Kuancheng, in Hebei province, and Dandong, in Liaoning province.

Chinese forces along the border responded to some unknown event in North Korea near Siniju on March 21 that involved Chinese fighter jets flying over the area.

The officials said the Chinese military activities appear to be based on concerns about a new outbreak of conflict between North Korea and South Korea and the United States.

China’s military maintains a long-standing defense treaty with the North that obligates China to defend North Korea in the event it is attacked. The last time Chinese forces backed Pyongyang was during the Korean War when tens of thousands of Chinese “volunteers” drove south into the peninsula.

Chinese military spokesmen frequently refer to their relations with the Korean People’s Army, as the North Korean military is called, as ties “as close as lips and teeth.”

Other reports from China indicate that the heightened tensions have led to a disruption of trade between China and North Korea along the border between the two countries.

One sign of slowed commerce between China and North Korea was a Chinese Internet report from a restaurant owner in Dandong, China, a border city, who said commerce between the two countries was disrupted following North Korea’s Feb. 12 underground nuclear test.

Since that time, it has been more difficult for the goods from North Korea to reach China because the North Korean Customs Office closed frequently as a result of increased Chinese inspections of North Korean goods.

U.S. officials and private analysts said the slowdown may be a sign of Beijing’s displeasure at the North Korean nuclear test.

China also held up exports of crude oil to North Korea in February, according to customs data reviewed by Reuters news agency. The agency said in areport that it was the first time deliveries of oil were cut since early 2007.

However, in a sign of continuing close relations, the government of Jilin province announced March 27 that it plans to modernize railway links to North Korea to bolster cross-border economic and trade ties.

The China Tumen-North Korea Rajin Railway and China Tumen-North Korea Chongjin Railway will be upgraded under the Jilin government plan, China’s official Global Times reported.

Additionally, the Chinese plan to set up a special highway passenger line to connect Tumen to North Korea over the next several years.

Other reports from the region stated that North Korean cities in the northern part of the country were placed on “combat” alert and have conducted evacuation drills, officials said.

The drills have been carried out in three-day to five-day intervals when power and water supplies were suspended as part of the exercises.

Chinese citizens living in border cities in China also reported hearing air-raid sirens as part of the exercises, officials said.

U.S. officials say China’s main fear for its fraternal communist client regime in North Korea is a collapse of order that leads to large-scale refugee flows into China.

Reports from inside North Korea also revealed that North Korean soldiers have been issued bread, instant noodles, sausages, milk, and dried fish that appeared to be supplied by the United Nations as aid meant for the civilian population.

Friday, March 15, 2013

Iran. Destroyers. Drone Pursuit. Ballistic Missile Test Fire. Obama's Red Line.

Iran docks Damavand destroyer for test purposes

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, March 15, IRNA -- Domestically-made Damavand destroyer was docked for test, Commander of the Iranian navy for research

and self-sufficiency jihad Rear Admiral Ali Gholamzadeh said on Friday.

He made the remarks in an exclusive interview with IRNA.

'Damavand destroyer will become operational in the month ahead for dispatch to the international waters,' Rear Admiral Gholamzadeh

Iran's Navy has been transformed into a highly-motivated, well-equipped, and well-financed force and is effectively in control of the world's oil lifeline, the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's naval power has even been acknowledged by foes. In a September 11, 2008 report, the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy said that in the two decades since the Iraqi-imposed war on Iran, the Islamic Republic has excelled in naval capabilities and is able to wage unique asymmetric warfare against larger naval forces.

Defense analysts and military observers say that Iran's war-game and its advancements in weapons production have proved as a deterrent factor, especially at a time of heightened threats by the US.

In November, Iranian Navy launched the main structure Sina-7 missile launching frigate. Navy also started using two new home-made Qadir-class light submarines and two hovercrafts.

In September, the main structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran Sahand (IRI Sahand) missile destroyer was officially launched by the Iranian Navy in Iran's Southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

Iran's first home-made destroyer, Jamaran, was launched in late February 2010. The Mowdge Class

vessel has a displacement of around 14,000 tons and is equipped with modern radars and electronic warfare capabilities and is armed with a variety of anti-ship, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.

Iranian officials have repeatedly warned the trans-regional states, specially the US, to pull their troops and warships out of the Persian Gulf, underlining the necessity for the establishment of security in the Persian Gulf through extensive and all-out cooperation among the regional states.

In relevant remarks in December, a senior military aide to the Iranian Supreme Leader said that trans-regional powers are trying to confine Iran's power through sparking insecurity around the country.

'The trans-regional enemies are pursuing a certain view (on Iran) and are creating insecurities in the regions around our country in a bid to block the Islamic Republic of Iran's progress and emergence of a mighty Iran,' senior Military Aide to the Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi said at the time.

He further said that the Persian Gulf region plays a key role in Iran's plans for progress and prosperity, and underlined the necessity for advancement, justice and durable security in the region.

Meanwhile, in recent years, Iran’s Navy has been increasing its presence in international waters to protect naval routes and provide security for Iranian merchant vessels and tankers.

In addition, in line with the international efforts to combat piracy, the Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden since November 2008 to safeguard the vessels involved in maritime trade

, especially the ships and oil tankers owned or leased by Iran.

source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2013/iran-130315-irna01.htm

U.S. Drone Over Persian Gulf Pursued by Iranian Jet

By Gopal Ratnam - Mar 14, 2013 4:00 PM MT

A U.S. military drone operating over international waters in the Persian Gulf was pursued by an Iranian military aircraft on March 12, according to the Pentagon.

The MQ-1 Predator drone, which was accompanied by two manned U.S. military airplanes, was conducting a classified surveillance flight in international airspace when it was approached by an Iranian F-4 jet that came within 16 miles (26 kilometers) of the unmanned plane, Pentagon spokesman George Little said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. After a “verbal warning” from the U.S., the Iranian plane broke off, according to the statement.

The incident is the latest in episodes going back to December 2011, when Iran said it captured a stealthy U.S. drone. In November 2012, the Pentagon said Iranian aircraft had fired on an unarmed Predator drone that was conducting routine surveillance over international waters.

After the incident in November, “the United States communicated to the Iranians that we will continue to conduct surveillance flights over international waters consistent with long-standing practice and our commitment to the security of the region,” Little said in the statement. “We also communicated that we reserve the right to protect our military assets as well as our forces and will continue to do so going forward.”

The latest incident was reported earlier yesterday by CNN.

International tensions over the Persian Gulf have increased as the U.S. and allies have tightened economic sanctions aimed at forcing Iran to abandon elements of its nuclear program they say could be used to develop an atomic bomb. Last year, Iranian officials periodically threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, which leads into the gulf and through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil transits.

Iran test fires ballistic missiles

Islamic Republic launches Fajr-5 rockets, used by Hamas to attack Israel, and longer range Nazeat 10

March 14, 2013, 12:30 pm

Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard celebrate after launching a missile, July 2012 (photo credit: AP/IRNA, Mostafa Qotbi)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian media said the military has test-fired several short-range missiles, including the type Palestinian militant Hamas group used to attack Tel Aviv last November.

Thursday’s report by the semi-official Fars news agency said the missiles were tested during an army exercise in central Iran. It said the missiles fired were Nazeat-10 and Fajr-5.

During weeks of fighting in November, Gaza’s Hamas rulers fired Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets that came close to Israel’s heartland, including the cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time.

Later, Iran admitted supplying Hamas with the technology to produce Fajr-5. The missile has a range of 75 kilometers, or 45 miles. The range of the Nazeat-10 missiles is about 100 kilometers, or 62 miles.

Iran regularly holds maneuver to test and promote its military power.

source:http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-test-fires-ballistic-missiles/

Iran to launch Jamaran 2 destroyer in Caspian Sea: Defense minister

Iran Press TV

Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:40AM GMT

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says the country plans to launch the indigenous Jamaran 2 destroyer in the Caspian Sea in the near future.

Vahidi said on Monday that the new warship is the symbol of the power of the Defense Ministry’s Marine Industries.

“After being launched and undergoing final tests… this destroyer will be delivered to Iran’s Navy,” Vahidi added.

In recent years, Iran has made great achievements in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing essential military equipment and systems.

Iran's Navy launched the indigenous Sahand destroyer in the southern port of Bandar Abbas on September 8, 2012 alongside the overhauled super-heavy Tareq 901 submarine.

The Iranian Navy launched its first destroyer, Jamaran, in the waters of the Persian Gulf in February 2010. The 1,420-ton vessel is equipped with modern radar systems and other electronic warfare capabilities.

Tehran has repeatedly assured other countries that its military might poses no threat to other states, insisting that the Islamic Republic’s defense doctrine is entirely based on deterrence.

source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2013/iran-130312-presstv01.htm

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Dishonorable Disclosures of Vital Intelligence by the Obama Administration.

The following is vital to the security of our country. Please pass this on so that everyone can get the message and the message may finally sink into the current administration and its Hollywood ties. Thank you.

Published on Aug 15, 2012 by OPSECTeam

Intelligence and Special Operations forces are furious and frustrated at how President Obama and those in positions of authority have exploited their service for political advantage. Countless leaks, interviews and decisions by the Obama Administration and other government officials have undermined the success of our Intelligence and Special Operations forces and put future missions and personnel at risk.

The unwarranted and dangerous public disclosure of Special Forces Operations is so serious -- that for the first time ever -- former operators have agreed to risk their reputations and go 'on the record' in a special documentary titled "Dishonorable Disclosures." Its goal is to educate America about serious breaches of security and prevent them from ever happening again.

Use of military ranks, titles & photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement of the Dept of the Army or the Department of Defense. All individuals are no longer in active service with any federal agency or military service.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The Paradox of China's Naval Strategy

July 17, 2012 | 0859 GMT

By Rodger Baker and Zhixing Zhang

Over the past decade, the South China Sea has become one of the most volatile flashpoints in East Asia. China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan each assert sovereignty over part or all of the sea, and these overlapping claims have led to diplomatic and even military standoffs in recent years.

Because the sea hosts numerous island chains, is rich in mineral and energy resources and has nearly a third of the world's maritime shipping pass through its waters, its strategic value to these countries is obvious. For China, however, control over the South China Sea is more than just a practical matter and goes to the center of Beijing's foreign policy dilemma: how to assert its historical maritime claims while maintaining the nonconfrontational foreign policy established by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1980.

China staked its modern claim to control of the sea in the waning days of the Chinese Civil War. Since most of the other claimant countries were occupied with their own independence movements in the ensuing decades, China had to do little to secure this claim. However, with other countries building up their maritime forces, pursuing new relationships and taking a more active stance in exploring and patrolling the waters, and with the Chinese public hostile to any real or perceived territorial concessions on Beijing's part, Deng's quiet approach is no longer an option.

Evolution of China's Maritime Logic

China is a vast continental power, but it also controls a long coastline, stretching at one time from the Sea of Japan in the northeast to the Gulf of Tonkin in the south. Despite this extensive coastline, China's focus has nearly always turned inward, with only sporadic efforts put toward seafaring and even then only during times of relative security on land.

Traditionally, the biggest threats to China were not from sea, except for occasional piracy, but rather from internal competition and nomadic forces to the north and west. China's geographic challenges encouraged a family-based, insular, agricultural economy, one with a strong hierarchal power structure designed in part to mitigate the constant challenges from warlords and regional divisions. Much of China's trade with the world was undertaken via land routes or carried out by Arabs and other foreign merchants at select coastal locations. In general, the Chinese chose to concentrate on the stability of the population and land borders over potential opportunities from maritime trade or exploration, particularly since sustained foreign contact could bring as much trouble as benefit.

Two factors contributed to China's experiments with naval development: a shift in warfare from northern to southern China and periods of relative national stability. During the Song dynasty (960-1279), the counterpart to the horse armies of the northern plains was a large inland naval force in the riverine and marshy south. The shift to river navies also spread to the coast, and the Song rulers encouraged coastal navigation and maritime trade by the Chinese, replacing the foreign traders along the coast. While still predominately inward-looking during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) under the Mongols, China carried out at least two major naval expeditions in the late 13th century -- against Japan and Java -- both of which ultimately proved unsuccessful. Their failure contributed to China's decision to again turn away from the sea. The final major maritime adventure occurred in the early Ming dynasty (1368-1644), when Chinese Muslim explorer Zheng He undertook his famous seven voyages, reaching as far as Africa but failing to use this opportunity to permanently establish Chinese power abroad.

Zheng He's treasure fleet was scuttled as the Ming saw rising problems at home, including piracy off the coast, and China once again looked inward. At about the same time that Magellan started his global expedition in the early 1500s, the Chinese resumed their isolationist policy, limiting trade and communication with the outside and ending most consideration of maritime adventure. China's naval focus shifted to coastal defense rather than power projection. The arrival of European gunboats in the 19th century thoroughly shook the conventional maritime logic of Chinese authorities, and only belatedly did they undertake a naval program based on Western technology.

Even this proved less than fully integrated into China's broader strategic thinking. The lack of maritime awareness contributed to the Qing government's decision to cede its crucial port access at the mouth of the Tumen River to Russia in 1858, permanently closing off access to the Sea of Japan from the northeast. Less than 40 years later, despite building one of the largest regional fleets, the Chinese navy was smashed by the newly emergent Japanese navy. For nearly a century thereafter, the Chinese again focused almost exclusively on the land, with naval forces taking a purely coastal defense role. Since the 1990s, this policy has slowly shifted as China's economic interconnectedness with the world expanded. For China to secure its economic strength and parlay that into stronger global influence, the development of a more proactive naval strategy became imperative.

Interpreting the 'Nine-Dash Line'

To understand China's present-day maritime logic and its territorial disputes with its neighbors, it is necessary to first understand the so-called nine-dash line, a loose boundary line demarcating China's maritime claims in the South China Sea.

The nine-dash line was based on an earlier territorial claim known as the eleven-dash line, drawn up in 1947 by the then-ruling Kuomintang government without much strategic consideration since the regime was busy dealing with the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of China and the ongoing civil war with the Communists. After the end of the Japanese occupation, the Kuomintang government sent naval officers and survey teams through the South China Sea to map the various islands and islets. The Internal Affairs Ministry published a map with an eleven-dash line enclosing most of the South China Sea far from China's shores. This map, despite its lack of specific coordinates, became the foundation of China's modern claims, and following the 1949 founding of the People's Republic of China, the map was adopted by the new government in Beijing. In 1953, perhaps as a way to mitigate conflict with neighboring Vietnam, the current nine-dash line emerged when Beijing eliminated two of the dashes.

The new Chinese map was met with little resistance or complaint by neighboring countries, many of which were then focused on their own national independence movements. Beijing interpreted this silence as acquiescence by the neighbors and the international community, and then stayed largely quiet on the issue to avoid drawing challenges. Beijing has shied away from officially claiming the line itself as an inviolable border, and it is not internationally recognized, though China regards the nine-dash line as the historical basis for its maritime claims.

Like other claimant countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines, China's long-term goal is to use its growing naval capabilities to control the islands and islets within the South China Sea and thus the natural resources and the strategic position they afford. When China was militarily weak, it supported the concept of putting aside sovereignty concerns and carrying out joint development, aiming to reduce the potential conflicts from overlapping claims while buying time for its own naval development. Meanwhile, to avoid dealing with a unified bloc of counterclaimants, Beijing adopted a one-to-one negotiation approach with individual countries on their own territorial claims, without the need to jeopardize its entire nine-dash line claim. This allowed Beijing to remain the dominant partner in bilateral negotiations, something it feared it would lose in a more multilateral forum.

Despite the lack of legal recognition for the nine-dash line and the constant friction it engenders, Beijing has little ability now to move away from the claim. With the rising international attention and regional competition over the South China Sea, the Chinese public -- which identifies the waters within the nine-dash line as territorial waters -- is pressuring Beijing to take more assertive actions. This has left China in an impossible position: When Beijing attempts to portray joint developments as evidence that other countries recognize China's territorial claims, the partner countries balk; when it tries to downplay the claims in order to manage international relations, the Chinese population protests (and in the case of Chinese fishermen, often act on their own in disputed territory, forcing the government to support them rhetorically and at times physically). Any effort to appeal to Beijing's domestic constituency would risk aggravating foreign partners, or vice versa.

Developing a Maritime Policy

The complications from the nine-dash line, the status of domestic Chinese developments and the shifting international system have all contributed to shape China's evolving maritime strategy.

Under former leader Mao Zedong, China was internally focused and constrained by a weak navy. China's maritime claims were left vague, Beijing did not aggressively seek to assert its rights and the independence struggles of neighboring countries largely spared China from taking a stronger maritime stance. China's naval development remained defensive, focused on protecting its shores from invasion. Deng Xiaoping, in concert with his domestic economic reforms in the late 1970s and early 1980s, sought the more pragmatic joint economic development of the East and South China seas, putting aside claims of territorial sovereignty for another time. China's military expenditures continued to focus on land forces (and missile forces), with the navy relegated to a largely defensive role operating only in Chinese coastal waters.

To a great degree, Deng's policies remained in place through the next two decades. There were sporadic maritime flare-ups in the South China Sea, but in general, the strategy of avoiding outright confrontation remained a core principle at sea. China's navy was in no position to challenge the dominant role of the U.S. Navy or to take any assertive action against its neighbors, especially since Beijing sought to increase its regional influence through economic and political means rather than through military force.

But joint development proposals for the South China Sea have largely failed. China's expanded economic strength, coupled with a concomitant rise in its military spending -- and more recently its focus on naval development -- has raised suspicions and concerns among neighboring countries, with many calling on the United States to take a more active role in the region to counterbalance China's rise. The issue of the nine-dash line and territorial claims have also risen in significance because countries had to file their maritime claims under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, bringing the competing claims a step closer to international arbitration. China, which was a signatory to the treaty largely due to its potential maritime gains in the East China Sea, found itself forced to file numerous counterclaims in the South China Sea, raising alarm in neighboring countries of what was seen as an outright push for regional hegemony.

It was not only counterclaimant nations that considered the Chinese moves troubling. Japan and South Korea are heavily dependent on the South China Sea as an energy transit corridor, and the United States, Australia and India among others depend on the sea for trade and military transit. All these countries saw China's moves as a potential prelude to challenging free access to the waters. China responded with increasingly assertive rhetoric as well as a larger role for the Chinese military in foreign policy decisions. The old policy of nonconfrontation was giving way to a new approach.

The Foreign Policy Debate

In 1980, Deng expressed the shape of Chinese foreign policy as one in which China should observe the world, secure its position, deal calmly with foreign affairs, hide its capabilities and bide its time, maintain a low profile and never claim leadership. These basic tenets remain the core of Chinese foreign policy, either as guidelines for action or excuses for inaction. But China's regional and domestic environment has shifted significantly from the early days of Deng's reforms, and China's economic and military expansion has already passed Deng's admonition to hide capabilities and bide time.

Beijing understands that only through a more proactive policy can China expand from a solely land-based power to a maritime power and reshape the region in a manner beneficial to its security interests. Failure to do so could enable other regional states and their allies, namely the United States, to contain or even threaten China's ambitions.

At least four elements of Deng's policies are currently under debate or changing: a shift from noninterference to creative involvement; a shift from bilateral to multilateral diplomacy; a shift from reactive to preventative diplomacy; and a move away from strict nonalignment toward semi-alliances.

Creative involvement is described as a way for China to be more active in preserving its interests abroad by becoming more involved in other countries' domestic politics -- a shift from noninterference to something more flexible. China has used money and other tools to shape domestic developments in other countries in the past, but an official change in policy would necessitate deeper Chinese involvement in local affairs. However, this would undermine China's attempts to promote the idea that it is just another developing nation helping other developing nations in the face of Western imperialism and hegemony. This shift in perception could erode some of China's advantage in dealing with developing nations since it has relied on promises of political noninterference as a counter to Western offers of better technology or more development resources that come with requirements of political change.

China has long relied on bilateral relations as its preferred method of managing its interests internationally. When China has operated within a multilateral forum, it has often shaped developments only by being a spoiler rather than a leader. For example, China can block sanctions in the U.N. Security Council but has rarely proffered a different path for the international community to pursue. Particularly through the 1990s, Beijing feared its relatively weak position left it little to gain from multilateral forums and instead put China under the influence of the stronger members. But China's rising economic power has shifted this equation.

China is pursuing more multilateral relationships as a way to secure its interests through the larger groups. China's relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, its participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its pursuit of trilateral summits are all intended to help Beijing shape the policy direction of these blocs. By shifting to the multilateral approach, China can make some of the weaker countries feel more secure and thus prevent them from turning to the United States for support.

Traditionally, China has had a relatively reactive foreign policy, dealing with crises when they emerge but often failing to recognize or act to prevent the crises before they materialize. In places where Beijing has sought access to natural resources, it has often been caught off-guard by changes in the local situation and not had a response strategy prepared. (The division of Sudan and South Sudan is one recent example). Now, China is debating shifting this policy to one where it seeks to better understand the underlying forces and issues that could emerge into conflict and act alone or with the international community to defuse volatile situations. In the South China Sea, this would mean clarifying its maritime claims rather than continuing to use the vague nine-dash line and also more aggressively pursuing ideas for an Asian security mechanism, one in which China would play an active leadership role.

Read the rest at : The Paradox of China's Naval Strategy | Stratfor