In A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, there is a description of the challenges of a new era. For instance, the world has become exceedingly interconnected. This has led to the escalation of sea-borne trade around the world. Sea-paths and related shore infrastructure is a key to modern global economy. The increased global interconnection has augmented the prosperity of many countries. This sustained growth has brought about growing competition for resources as well as capital with other economic powers. Increased popular expectations and heightened competition for resources, combined with scarcity of the resources, has made countries to exert wider claims of sovereignty over greater areas of the ocean, shipping canals as well as natural resources. This is one of the reasons that have made China to be more assertive in the South China Sea and this has the potential for prompting conflicts between China and other nations (ISE, 2010).
China is the second largest economy after the US. The country heavily depends on trade. The country therefore seriously needs raw materials to fuel the economy. Also, the country needs to ship exports overseas. This has unavoidably made the sea of increasing importance to the country’s well-being. Furthermore, there has been increasing insistence on international trade in China over the years. This has shifted the country’s economic hub of gravity to the coast. Maritime security has also become of great importance to the Chinese governance in a manner that has never happened before (Cheng, 2011).
It is true to say that not all navies have equal strength. Intents matters as much as capabilities. The Chinese maritime development may basically be intended for the protection of the country’s economic lifelines. It may as well be intended to coerce and constrain the country’s neighbors, most of which depend on the seas. This has made much country’s including the US to meticulously and soberly appraise the motive behind the China’s naval expansion. Unlike in the past, China is highly dependent on the seas. It has been noted that, since joining WTO or the World Trade Organization, the country’s trade with other countries has progressively expanded as one of the key activities of the national economy. The country’s trade with other nations therefore affects about sixty five percent of the country’s economy. In the absence of trade, China’s economy could not be sustainable. Growth rates essential for the maintenance of high employment figures; a key justification employed by the ruling party in the country to retain power, also cannot be achieved without trade. This has made seaborne commerce an essential part of the Chinese trade (Cheng, 2011).
A number of surveys have shown that seaborne trade alone represents about 9.86 percent of the China’s GDP. This translates to a valuation of about 456 billion dollars. Additionally, about 84 percent of the country’s international trade is moved by the sea lanes. Due to this increasing dependence on the sea, the country has come up with strategies to administer its maritime growth. The strategies are meant to meet a number of considerations including the extensive maritime interest of the Chinese, which encompass the increasing dependence on the global sea ways for trade, the interests of the country’s security which encompasses access to the maritime resources, counteracting external interference in Chinese businesses, sea ways security, possibility for military conflicts resulting from claims over maritime boundaries or islands and the need to establish a “friendly society” at the seas that acknowledges the inevitability of growing global competition for the resources related to the sea (Cheng, 2011).
The increasing dependence on the sea is not unique to the Chinese. Other countries, like US, are also coming up with strategies that will ensure that they get the best out of the sea resources. Although this is done with the guise of establishing a peaceful society, many countries, including China may be up for something bad or different. China has shown the increased intention to control the South China Sea. As much as this is fueled by increasing Chinese interest in international trade, it is raising a lot of anxiety on what will happen next. When Dr.Yoshihara said that the Chinese recent assertiveness in the South China Sea is a harbinger of things to come, he meant that this might trigger a lot of issues and possibly conflicts between China and its neighbors. The increasing assertiveness, therefore, is an indication of many things that might happen in the future between China and its neighbors as the competition for the sea resources increases. Possibility of conflicts between countries that depends on the sea, as noted in A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, therefore aligns itself with Dr.Yoshihara’s judgment (ISE, 2010).
References
Cheng, D. (2011). Sea power and the Chinese state: china’s maritime ambitions. Retrieved
ISE, (2010). A cooperative strategy for the 21st century seapower. Retrieved from
https://www.ise.gov/sites/default/files/Maritime_Strategy.pdf
