The Ocean Threat

The challenge emerging from China’s naval rise means that India needs to find ways to mitigate that threat with some urgency.

- Harsh V. Pant

AFTER COMMISSIONING its first aircraft carrier, a refitted Soviet-era vessel called the Liaoning, in 2012, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) launched its second aircraft carrier, the Shandong or CV001A, last month. This first 70,000-tonne indigenously produced aircraft carrier of China is likely to be operational by 2020. The elaborate ceremony put on by the PLAN was to signal its arrival in the wider world as a serious naval power. And the world of course was watching, especially China’s neighbours who are already feeling the brunt of Chinese maritime expansionism.

There is nothing out of the ordinary in what China is doing. As a rising power, China’s military advancement is to be expected. Beijing wants to project power far beyond its shores, so a blue water navy is a prerequisite for Chinese ambitions. But it is entangled in maritime disputes all around its periphery from East to South China Sea. Chinese naval presence is growing in the Indian Ocean and the larger Pacific. Chinese President Xi Jinping has launched defence reforms which are taking away resources from land to air and naval power. And the Chinese defence ministry has been articulating the need for PLAN to gradually shift its focus from “offshore waters defence” to “open-seas protection.”