Word: china
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...tense standoffs in recent months between American and PLA surveillance vessels near China's southern Hainan island may be an augur of what lies ahead. A new submarine base there gives Beijing a vital edge in the South China Sea, whose waters are contested by five other governments. The disputed Spratly and Paracel archipelagoes, which sit above reserves of natural gas, have been an ongoing bone of contention between China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Further afield, China and India, Asia's other rising giant, are locked in a protracted contest of influence over the Indian Ocean, with China setting...
...Strategic analysts stress there's nothing wrong with emerging nations like India and China improving their naval prowess to match their heightened role in world affairs. "It is logical that these countries will build navies and project their power," says Raja Mohan. "The question is how does this all get managed?" As of yet, there is no regional treaty alliance in place, no new diplomatic structures like NATO in Europe, for example, that could reflect or bring order to the shifting power lines of the Asian 21st century. Last year, Japanese prime minister Taro Aso floated the idea...
...Other nations in China's neighborhood are not holding their breath. Over the next five years alone, Asian navies will lavish an estimated $60 billion on upgrades and new technologies, outstripping all the combined spending of countries in NATO, excluding the U.S. Apart from China, the top Asian spenders include Japan and South Korea, nations that over the past 40 years relied on American military support to deter the communist states to their west. Now, Japan is due to launch its largest ship since World War II, a "Hyuga" class helicopter carrier - Japan's pacifist constitution forbids...
...region's growth. Mike McDevitt, a retired U.S. admiral and director of the strategic studies division at the Center for Naval Analyses in Washington D.C., envisions a more tacit struggle for strategic supremacy, based on stealth and surveillance. "There'll be a capabilities competition between the U.S. and China going on for the foreseeable future," he says, with navies seeking to interfere with rival sea lines of communication, probing maritime borders with deep sea patrols likely involving submarines capable of bearing ballistic missiles...
...cloud of uncertainty looms over the shape of things to come. Experts talk of China's maritime rise in the same continuum as that of the British Royal Navy in the days of Victorian empire, and the U.S. fleet during the Cold War. At present, China's naval capabilities are still that of a regional power - its own state planners aim for the PLA to finally have "risen" only in half a century's time. By then, the world could be very a different place. The Chinese navy could act as a stabilizing force - or a source of conflict that...