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It is no secret that Beijing has been embarking on the largest peacetime modernisation and expansion of its military capabilities, with new analysis revealing the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) is set to become a truly global force, with the inescapable capacity to dominate the Indo-Pacific.
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The Indo-Pacific is a vastly different operating environment to the traditional land locked environs of the Middle East, Central Asia, and even parts of Europe.
A region largely dominated by its maritime environs, characterised by critical sea lines of communication, tight, narrow, archipelagic chokepoints, vast swathes of open ocean all requiring a balanced approach to naval power.
As the global centre of economic, political, and strategic power has shifted from Europe towards the Indo-Pacific, many regional nations have moved to modernise and expand their own naval capabilities to secure their own national interests and ambitions across the Indo-Pacific.
Front and centre is Xi Jinping’s China, which has leveraged the nation’s meteoric economic, political, and industrial rise since the period of liberalisation kicking off in the late 1970s and truly taking force in the late-1980s and early-1990s.
To deliver this, Xi has embarked on the largest peacetime modernisation and build-up of military capabilities since the Second World War, fundamentally transforming the People’s Liberation Army into one of the world’s pre-eminent military forces.
However, for nations like Australia, that have long depended on the enduring commitment, benevolence, and “overmatch” of the United States Navy, in particular, to maintain the security and integrity of the global maritime commons, the transformation of the People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) from a second-rate, “brown water” navy, to become an increasingly capable “blue water”, global navy is presenting some challenges.
The central focus of much of the concern about the rising power of Beijing’s navy has been the rapid number of ships built and put into service and their increasing capability to seemingly match the best that the US and its allies can field, with the scale to tip the balance of power in the favour of Beijing’s ambitions and interests in the Indo-Pacific.
Highlighting this is a recent and concerning report compiled by the US-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) by Jack Bianchi, Madison Creery, Harrison Schramm, and Toshi Yoshihara, titled, China’s choices: A new tool for assessing the PLA’s modernisation, which has shed light on the rising great power’s ambitions.
A major naval power emerges
Where the United States Navy supplanted the British Royal Navy as the world’s pre-eminent naval fighting force during the mid-1940s and maintained the unmolested access to the global maritime commons, years of low-intensity conflicts in the Middle East and Central Asia, coupled with domestic economic and industrial decline forcing political sequestration on defence funding, has forced the US Navy to become a shell of its former glory.
In contrast, Beijing has been quietly expanding and modernising the People’s Liberation Army-Navy into one of the world’s pre-eminent naval fighting forces, fielding a host of impressive naval capabilities, including nuclear-powered attack and ballistic missile submarines, advanced surface combatants like the Type 055 guided missile cruiser/destroyers (depends on who you ask) and the Type 05C/D guided missile destroyers, and a growing fleet of power projection-focused platforms, namely advanced aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare vessels.
Highlighting this, the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, titled, China Naval Modernization: Implications for US Navy Capabilities—Background and Issues for the US Congress states: “China’s navy is, by far, the largest of any country in East Asia, and sometime between 2015 and 2020 it surpassed the US Navy in numbers of battle force ships (meaning the types of ships that count towards the quoted size of the US Navy). The overall battle force [of China’s navy] is expected to grow to 400 ships by 2025 and 440 ships by 2030. The US Navy, by comparison, included 294 battle force ships at the end of FY2021, and the Navy’s FY2024 budget submission projects that the Navy will include 290 battle force ships by the end of FY2030. US military officials and other observers are expressing concern or alarm regarding the pace of China’s naval shipbuilding effort and resulting trend lines regarding the relative sizes and capabilities of China’s navy and the US Navy.”
Where the US Navy and the broader US Armed Forces as a whole have been subjected to periods of inconsistent funding, domestic political brinkmanship, and special interests which have without being hyperbolic, fundamentally hamstrung both the capability of the US Armed Forces and the once mighty US defense industrial base to deliver the capabilities required.
In contrast, according to detailed analysis conducted by the US-based CSBA, China’s own program of naval modernisation and expansion, in particular, is rather disconcertingly affordable over the next decade, with a full “dance card” of capabilities able to be delivered.
The report highlights this stating, “The PLA can maintain, expand, and improve its regional defense forces, including short-range fighter aircraft, land-based ballistic and cruise missiles, frigates, missile boats, and diesel-electric submarines. At the same time, the PLA can continue building a range of large power projection platforms for global operations, including aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, blue water logistics vessels, strategic bombers, and strategic transport and refuelling aircraft.”
Unpacking this uncomfortable reality even further, the CSBA report details the central priority of the Chinese government is to “consolidate power regionally” prior to expanding the capability “globally”, effectively emulating the success of the US Navy and its role as the primary security guarantor for many global maritime nations, even those with their own naval forces.
Explaining this, the CSBA states, “The sequencing of China’s force structure investments may indicate the prioritisation of China’s strategic objectives. Rising powers generally consolidate power regionally and then seek to expand globally. Similarly, in our exercises, teams prioritised the further development of near seas capabilities first, followed by overseas power projection capabilities and posture.”
Unpacking this further, the CSBA report highlights, “This sequencing would emphasise that regional goals, especially Taiwan, continue to have precedence over China’s global ambitions. The PLA’s balance between regional and global force structure investments thus serves as an indicator of Beijing’s strategic priorities.”
In order to deliver this dualistic regional and global approach, Beijing is expected to field a truly impressive fleet by 2030, with the PLA-N expected to field some truly frightening capabilities, namely 10 nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines and a total of five aircraft carriers with their supporting strike groups.
Not to be outdone, the rest of the Chinese fleet is expected to receive a broader modernisation, including major new surface combatants including the Type 055, Type 052C/D, Type 054A/B frigates, a host of corvettes and long-range afloat replenishment, and auxiliary support vessels to expand the reach of the PLA-N to ensure that China’s access to critical flows of raw resources and energy are secure.
Meanwhile, in Australia...
Closer to home, the Albanese government’s Defence Strategic Review, released in late-April 2023, has moved to fundamentally reshape the Royal Australian Navy.
This realignment of Navy’s force structure and capability is part of government’s recognition that the Australian Defence Force as a whole is no longer fit for purpose in the era of increased great power competition and multipolarity, heralding a shift away from a “balanced force” towards a “focused force” in the face of mounting great power competition in the Indo-Pacific.
First and foremost is the rapidly deteriorating geopolitical, tactical, and strategic situation emerging across the Indo-Pacific, necessitating the development of a flexible, future-proofed force capable of reliably responding to the tactical and strategic requirements placed upon the service by the nation’s policymakers.
Highlighting this emphasis, the Defence Strategic Review states, “Australia’s Navy must be optimised for operating Australia’s immediate region and for the security of our sea lines of communication and maritime trade.”
Second is Australia’s planned fleet of nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines to be delivered as part of AUKUS Pillar 1.
Lastly is the necessity to fundamentally overhaul the Navy’s surface fleet in order to deliver “An enhanced lethality surface combatant fleet, that complements a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine fleet, is now essential given our changed strategic circumstances.”
Yet, despite this combination of factors, recent revelations have left questions about the government’s commitment to deliver the necessary capabilities to ensure that the Royal Australian Navy, in particular, is fit for purpose in the face of the deteriorating regional and global outlook.
Namely, the government’s decision to delay its response to the findings of the review conducted by US Vice Admiral (Ret’d) William Hilarides, until Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles explained at a Submarine Institute of Australia event in mid-September, “Our intention is to provide our response to that, meaning the decisions which come from that, in really the first part of the first couple of months of next year. We’ll try and get this out the door as quickly as we can, but that’s essentially the timeframe that we’re working on.”
This is further reinforced by Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, who said, “It’s an incredibly complex piece of work, detailing recommendations around platforms that cost tens of billions of dollars. It really will drive the structure of the Royal Australian Navy for 30, if not 50 years to come, and government will take our time working through its recommendations, and we will respond to it, and we’re aiming to release a response in the first couple of months of next year at the latest.”
While commendable, they’re taking the time to “do the hard yards”, this seeming lack of urgency seems to fly in the face of repeated reminders about the precarious position in which we now find ourselves.
Final thoughts
The growing realisation is that both the United States and allies like Australia will need to get the balance of its military and national capabilities just right, not just to support the US as part of a larger joint task force, but to ensure that the Australian Defence Force can continue to operate independently and complete its core mission reliably and responsively.
Critically, while there has been a recognition that Navy, like the broader ADF, needs to grow in personnel and firepower; however, it can’t be half measures, rather, we need to accept that Navy, in particular, will require a major overhaul and tactical and strategic rethink in its structure and priorities to better deliver impactful projection.
Importantly, if Australia is going to truly respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by the global shift in the balance and centre of economic, political, and strategic power to our immediate region, we, as a nation, need to collectively take responsibility for our own future.
We also need to address the domestic challenges we confront, namely, the social and economic disenfranchisement and disconnection many young Australians face, because if our young people don’t feel invested in our nation, then they definitely won’t step forward to defend the nation and our values.
Preparing the nation to truly face these challenges requires a unifying, inspirational grand strategy which not only articulates our values and principles, but equally identifies a vision at both the macro and micro level, with clearly defined objectives and metrics for delivering providing the nation with the capacity to resist the traditional and hybrid challenges of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific.
Get involved with the discussion and let us know your thoughts on Australia’s future role and position in the Indo-Pacific region and what you would like to see from Australia’s political leaders in terms of partisan and bipartisan agenda setting in the comments section below, or get in touch
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
