Assessing the New U.S. Maritime Strategy: A Window into Chinese Thinking–Part 1 of 4
Andrew S. Erickson, “Assessing the New U.S. Maritime Strategy: A Window into Chinese Thinking,” (Annotated translation and analysis of three Chinese articles), Naval War College Review 61.4 (Autumn 2008): 35-71.
Chinese reactions to the U.S. Navy’s new maritime strategy provide a window into a larger strategic dynamic—not just in East Asia, where China is already developing as a great power, but globally, where it has the potential to play a major role as well. Three unofficial Chinese articles seem particularly useful for assessing those reactions.
The new U.S. maritime strategy embodies a historic reassessment of the international system and how the nation can best pursue its interests in harmony with those of other states. In light of the strategy’s focus on building partnerships to better safeguard the global maritime commons, it is vital that American leaders clearly understand the frank and unvarnished views of allies, friends, and potential partners.
Chinese responses warrant especially close consideration. China is a key global stakeholder with which the United States shares many common maritime interests. Beijing has not made any official public statements on the maritime strategy thus far. Yet Chinese opinions on this matter are clearly important, even if they suggest that in some areas the two nations must “agree to disagree.” Chinese reactions to the maritime strategy provide a window into a larger strategic dynamic–not just in East Asia, where China is already developing as a great power, but globally, where it has the potential to play a major role as well. How the United States can maintain its existing status and role while China continues to rise–as the world’s greatest developed and developing powers attempt to reach an understanding that might be termed “competitive coexistence”–will be perhaps the critical question in international relations for the twenty-first century.
To that end, this study analyzes three of the most significant unofficial Chinese assessments of the maritime strategy publicly available to date and offers annotated full-length translations (which follow, in the form of essays) so that a foreign audience can survey the documents themselves.
