10 February 2010

New Review of China Goes to Sea

Anonymous review of Andrew S. Erickson, Lyle J. Goldstein, and Carnes Lord, eds., China Goes to Sea: Maritime Transformation in Comparative Historical Perspective (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009), 10 February 2010.

… First, something on the background to the book. In effect, it’s been produced by some of the leading lights of the increasingly impressive China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island.  … This group of academics working for the US Navy has the advantage of understanding Chinese, inestimable given the vast maritime literature that country is now producing. In a century likely to be dominated by the relationship of the G2—China and the United States—the American focus on this new big kid on the block is entirely understandable, since the day-to-day relationship between the two countries is formed and expressed first by their trade with each other and then by their naval interactions. In large measure, this relationship will determine the political architecture of the 21st century and helps explain why it will be the century of the Pacific. …

The editors of China Goes to Sea have decided to go back to history to see if that helps us predict which way the PLA(N) will go. Specifically they have commissioned a series of clear and well-argued studies which looks at the way other countries have developed their seapower to see whether that will throw up any clues. …

The last two parts of the book look just at China. They consist of three particularly stimulating chapters which look at the rise and fall of Chinese seapower in the past and four which explore possible trajectories into the future. What emerges is a picture of the Chinese pragmatically transforming themselves (back?) into a sea-faring nation because they have a developing interest in the defence of the sea-based trading system, and a variety of vital maritime concerns in what they regard as their sea areas that are being challenged by their neighbours (Taiwan, the islands of the South and East China Seas). Progress is steady rather than dramatic, and China still has ‘continental distractions’ such as disputed land-borders, environmental and demographic challenges, and a growing problem with internal order. How things develop in the future will depend in large measure on the reaction to all this by China’s neighbors, most particularly the United States, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the other countries of ASEAN. …