Prisoners of Geography

by Tim Marshall

  The Chinese were great sea voyagers, especially in the fifteenth century, when they roamed the Indian Ocean; Admiral Zheng He’s expedition ventured as far as Kenya. But these were money-making exercises, not power projections, and they were not designed to create forward bases that could be used to support military operations.

  Having spent 4,000 turbulent years consolidating its land mass, China is now building a Blue Water navy. A Green Water navy patrols its maritime borders, a Blue Water navy patrols the oceans. It will take another thirty years (assuming economic progression) for China to build naval capacity to seriously challenge the most powerful seaborne force the world has ever seen – the US navy. But in the medium to short term, as it builds, and trains, and learns, the Chinese navy will bump up against its rivals on the seas; and how those bumps are managed – especially the Sino–American ones – will define great power politics in this century.

  The young seamen now training on the second-hand aircraft carrier China salvaged from a Ukrainian rust yard will be the ones who, if they make it to the rank of admiral, may have learnt enough to know how to take a twelve-ship carrier group across the world and back – and if necessary fight a war along the way. As some of the richer Arab nations came to realise, you cannot buy an efficient military off the shelf. A Chinese-built aircraft carrier is now nearing completion, and in early 2016 China announced plans for a third to be ready by late 2021. It is doubtful it will be nuclear powered, and it will lack the capabilities of US carriers; nevertheless, it will give China more reach and more options.

  Gradually the Chinese will put more and more vessels into the seas off their coast, and into the Pacific. Each time one is launched there will be less space for the Americans in the China Seas. The Americans know this, and know the Chinese are working towards a land-based anti-ship missile system to double the reasons why the US navy, or any of its allies, might one day want to think hard about sailing through the South China Sea. Or indeed, any other ‘China’ sea. China’s increasingly long-distance shore-to-ship artillery firepower will allow its growing navy to venture further from its coastline because the navy will become less vital for defence. There was a hint of this in September 2015 when the Chinese (lawfully) sailed five vessels through American territorial waters off the coast of Alaska. That this took place just before President Xi’s visit to the United States was not a coincidence. The Bering Strait is the quickest way for Chinese vessels to reach the Arctic Ocean, and we will see more of them off the Alaskan coast in the coming years. And all the while, the developing Chinese space project will be watching every move the Americans make, and those of its allies.

  So, having gone clockwise around the land borders, we now look east, south and south-west towards the sea.

  Between China and the Pacific is the archipelago that Beijing calls the ‘First Island Chain’. There is also the ‘Nine Dash Line’, more recently turned into ten dashes in 2013 to include Taiwan, which China says marks its territory. This dispute over ownership of more than 200 tiny islands and reefs is poisoning China’s relations with its neighbours. National pride means China wants to control the passageways through the Chain; geopolitics dictates it has to. It provides access to the world’s most important shipping lanes in the South China Sea. In peacetime the route is open in various places, but in wartime they could very easily be blocked, thus blockading China. All great nations spend peacetime preparing for the day war breaks out.

  The South China Sea is a hotly contested area between China and its neighbours, leading to disputes over ownership of islands, natural resources and control of the seas and shipping lanes.

  Free access to the Pacific is firstly hindered by Japan. Chinese vessels emerging from the Yellow Sea and rounding the Korean Peninsula would have to go through the Sea of Japan and up through La Perouse Strait above Hokkaido and into the Pacific. Much of this is Japanese or Russian territorial waters and at a time of great tension, or even hostilities, would be inaccessible to China. Even if they made it they would still have to navigate through the Kuril Islands north-east of Hokkaido, which are controlled by Russia but claimed by Japan.

  Japan is also in dispute with China over the uninhabited island chain it calls Senkaku and the Chinese know as Diaoyu, north-east of Taiwan. This is the most contentious of all territorial claims between the two countries. If, instead, Chinese ships pass through, or indeed set off from, the East China Sea off Shanghai and go in a straight line towards the Pacific, they must pass the Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa – upon which there is not only a huge American military base, but as many shore-to-ship missiles as the Japanese can pile up at the tip of the island. The message from Tokyo is: ‘We know you’re going out there, but don’t mess with us on the way out.’

  Another potential flare-up with Japan centres on the East China Sea’s gas deposits. Beijing has declared an ‘Air Defence Identification Zone’ over most of the sea, requiring prior notice before anyone else flies through it. The Americans and Japanese are trying to ignore it, but it will become a hot issue at a time of their choosing or due to an accident which is mismanaged.

  Below Okinawa is Taiwan, which sits off the Chinese coast and separates the East China Sea from the South China Sea. China claims Taiwan as its twenty-third province, but it is currently an American ally with a navy and air force armed to the teeth by Washington. It came under Chinese control in the seventeenth century but has only been ruled by China for five years in the last century (from 1945 to 1949).

  Taiwan’s official name is the Republic of China (ROC) to differentiate it from the People’s Republic of China, although both sides believe they should have jurisdiction over both territories. This is a name Beijing can live with as it does not state that Taiwan is a separate state. The Americans are committed to defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. However, if Taiwan declares full independence from China, which China would consider an act of war, the USA is not bound to come to its rescue, as the declaration would be considered provocative.

  The two governments vie for recognition for themselves and non-recognition of the other in every single country in the world, and in most cases Beijing wins. When you can offer a potential market of 1.4 billion people as opposed to 23 million, most countries don’t need long to consider. However, there are twenty-two countries (mostly developing states such as Swaziland, Burkina Faso and the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe) which do opt for Taiwan, and which are usually handsomely rewarded.

  The Chinese are determined to have Taiwan but are nowhere near being able to challenge for it militarily. Instead they are using soft power by increasing trade and tourism between the two states. China wants to woo Taiwan back into its arms. During the 2014 student protests in Hong Kong, one of the reasons the authorities did not quickly batter them off the streets – as they would have done in, for example, Ürümqi – was that the world’s cameras were there and would have captured the violence. In China much of this footage would be blocked, but in Taiwan people would see what the rest of the world saw and ask themselves how close a relationship they wanted with such a power. Beijing hesitated; it is playing the long game.

  The soft-power approach is to persuade the people of Taiwan they have nothing to fear in rejoining the ‘Motherland’. The Air Defence Identification Zone, the surfacing near US ships and the build-up of a navy are part of a long-term plan to weaken American resolve to defend an island 140 miles off the coast of mainland China, but 6,400 miles from the west coast of the USA.

  From the South China Sea Chinese ships would still have problems, whether they headed towards the Pacific or the Indian Ocean – which is the world’s waterway for the gas and oil without which China would collapse.

  To go westward towards the energy-producing states of the Gulf they must pass Vietnam, which, as we have noted, has recently been making overtures to the Americans. They must go near the Philippines, a US ally, before trying to get through the Strait of Malacca
between Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, all of which are diplomatically and militarily linked to the USA. The Strait is approximately 500 miles long and at its narrowest is less than two miles wide. It has always been a choke point – and the Chinese remain vulnerable to being choked. All of the states along the Strait and near its approaches are anxious about Chinese dominance, and most have territorial disputes with Beijing.

  China claims almost the entire South China Sea, and the energy supplies believed to be beneath it, as its own. However, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei also have territorial claims against China and each other. For example, the Philippines and China argue bitterly over the Mischief Islands, a large reef in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, which one day could live up to their name. Every one of the hundreds of disputed atolls, and sometimes just rocks poking out of the water, could be turned into a diplomatic crisis, as surrounding each rock is a potential dispute about fishing zones, exploration rights and sovereignty.

  To further its aims, China is using dredging and land reclamations methods to begin turning a series of reefs and atolls in disputed territory into islands. For example, one in the Spratly Islands (whose name, Fiery Cross Reef, aptly described it) is now an island complete with a port and a runway that could host fighter jets, giving China far more control of the skies over the region than it currently has. Another reef has had artillery units stationed on it.

  Speaking in the summer of 2015, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said, ‘Turning an underwater rock into an air-field simply does not afford the rights of sovereignty or permit restrictions on international air or maritime transit.’ This was shortly after China announced it was switching its military posture in the region from defence to both offence and defence. The move underlines China’s intention to be the rule maker in the region and for that it will both court and threaten its neighbours.

  China must secure the routes through the South China Sea, both for its goods to get to market, and for the items required to make those goods – oil, gas and precious metals among them – to get into China. It cannot afford to be blockaded. Diplomacy is one solution; the ever-growing navy is another; but the best guarantees are pipelines, roads and ports.

  Diplomatically, China will attempt to pull the South-East Asian nations away from the USA using both carrot and stick. Too much stick, and the countries will tie themselves ever closer into defence treaties with Washington; too much carrot, and they may not bend to Beijing’s will. At the moment they still look across the Pacific for protection.

  The maps of the region that the Chinese now print show almost the whole of the South China Sea as theirs. This is a statement of intent, backed by aggressive naval patrols and official statements. Beijing intends to change its neighbours’ ways of thinking and to change America’s way of thinking and behaving – pushing and pushing an agenda until its competitors back off. At stake here is the concept of international waters and free passage in peacetime; it is not something which will easily be given up by the other powers.

  The geopolitical writer Robert Kaplan expounds the theory that the South China Sea is to the Chinese in the twenty-first century what the Caribbean was to the USA at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Americans, having consolidated their land mass, had become a two-ocean power (Atlantic and Pacific), and then moved to control the seas around them, pushing the Spanish out of Cuba.

  China also intends to become a two-ocean power (Pacific and Indian). To achieve this China is investing in deep-water ports in Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – an investment which buys it good relations, the potential for its future navy to have friendly bases to visit or reside in, and trade links back home.

  The Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal ports are part of an even bigger plan to secure China’s future. Its lease on the new deep-water port at Gwadar, Pakistan, will be key (if the Pakistan region of Baluchistan is stable enough) to creating an alternative land route up to China. From Burma’s west coastline China has built natural gas and oil pipelines linking the Bay of Bengal up into south-west China – China’s way of reducing its nervous reliance on the Strait of Malacca, through which almost 80 per cent of its energy supplies pass. This partially explains why, when the Burmese Junta began to slowly open up to the outside world in 2010, it wasn’t just the Chinese who beat a path to their door. The Americans and Japanese were quick to establish better relations, with both President Obama and Prime Minister Abe of Japan going to pay their respects in person. If they can influence Burma, they can help check China. So far, the Chinese are winning this particular game on the global chessboard, but the Americans may be able to outmuscle them as long as the Burmese government is confident Washington will stand by it.

  The Chinese are also building ports in Kenya, railway lines in Angola, and a hydroelectric dam in Ethiopia. They are scouring the length and breadth of the whole of Africa for minerals and precious metals.

  Chinese companies and workers are spread out across the world; slowly China’s military will follow. With great power comes great responsibility. China will not leave the sea lanes in its neighbourhood to be policed by the Americans. There will be events which require the Chinese to act out of region. A natural disaster or a terrorist/hostage incident involving large numbers of Chinese workers would require China to take action, and that entails forward bases, or at least agreements from other states that China could pass through their territory. There are now tens of millions of Chinese around the world, in some cases housed in huge complexes for workers in parts of Africa.

  China will struggle to become agile over the next decade. It could barely manoeuvre the People’s Army’s equipment to help in the aftermath of the devastating 2008 earthquake in Sichuan. It mobilised the army, but not their materiel; moving abroad at speed would be an even greater challenge.

  This will change. China is not weighed down or motivated diplomatically or economically by human rights in its dealings with the world. It is secure in its borders, straining against the bonds of the First Island Chain, and now moving around the globe with confidence. If it can avoid a serious conflict with Japan or the USA, then the only real danger to China is itself.

  There are 1.4 billion reasons why China may succeed, and 1.4 billion reasons why it may not surpass America as the greatest power in the world. A great depression like that of the 1930s could set it back decades. China has locked itself into the global economy. If we don’t buy, they don’t make. And if they don’t make there will be mass unemployment. If there is mass and long-term unemployment, in an age when the Chinese are a people packed into urban areas, the inevitable social unrest could be – like everything else in modern China – on a scale hitherto unseen.

  CHAPTER 3

  USA

  ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’

  Mark Twain

  LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. IF YOU WON THE LOTTERY, and were looking to buy a country to live in, the first one the estate agent would show you would be the United States of America.

  Twain was referring to the erroneous reporting of his death, but he could have been talking about the over-reporting of the demise of the USA.

  It’s in a wonderful neighbourhood, the views are marvellous and there are some terrific water features, the transport links are excellent; and the neighbours? The neighbours are great, no trouble at all.

  If you broke this living space up into numerous sections it would considerably lower its value – especially if the tenants did not all speak the same language and paid the rent in different currencies – but as one home, for one family, it can’t be bettered.

  There are fifty American states, but they add up to one nation in a way the twenty-eight sovereign states of the European Union never can. Most of the EU states have a national identity far stronger, more defined, than any American state. It is easy to find a French person who is French first, European second, or one who pays little allegiance to the idea of Europe, but an American
identifies with their Union in a way few Europeans do theirs. This is explained by geography, and by the history of the unification of the USA.

  Painting this vast country in bold, broad brushstrokes from east to west, you can divide it into three parts.

  First there is the East Coast Plain leading to the Appalachian Mountains, an area well watered by short but navigable rivers and with fertile soil. Then, heading further west, you have the Great Plains stretching all the way to the Rocky Mountains, and within this section lies the Mississippi basin with its network of huge, navigable rivers flowing into the Mississippi River all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, which is sheltered by the peninsula of Florida and several islands. Once over the massive mountain range that is the Rockies you get to the desert, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a narrow coastal plain, and finally to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

  To the north, above the Great Lakes, lies the Canadian Shield, the world’s largest area of Precambrian rock, much of which forms a barrier to human settlement. To the south-west – desert. Geography had determined that if a political entity could get to and then control the land ‘from sea to shining sea’, it would be a great power, the greatest history has known. Once that power was achieved, the Union would become almost impossible to invade. As we saw with Russia, there is ‘strategic depth’ for a defending force to fall back to. The size of Canada, (and to a lesser extent Mexico) is also an asset, as any hostile power attempting to invade by going through these countries would have incredibly long supply lines.

  Equally important, in modern times, is that anyone stupid enough to contemplate invading America would soon be forced to reflect on the fact that it contains hundreds of millions of guns, readily available to a population that takes its life, liberty and pursuit of happiness very seriously. In addition to the formidable US Armed Forces, there is the National Guard, state police and, as we saw on various occasions in 2015, an urban police force that can quickly resemble a military unit. In the event of an invasion, every US Folsum, Fairfax, and Farmerville would quickly resemble an Iraqi Fallujah.