The legacy of Admiral von Tirpitz: a geopolitical understanding of China's naval buildup through sea-denial strategies

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Paolo Pizzolo
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Power Projection ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
Military Development ◽  
Maritime Strategy

Abstract As manifest challenger of the United States (US)-led international order, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has inaugurated a revisionist strategy that encompasses a multifaceted spectrum of initiatives, including an ambitious naval military build-up. History has shown that revisionist and challenging powers tend to defy the established order through arm races. US Admiral Mahan and German Admiral Tirpitz theorized two different approaches to naval strategy, the former focusing on global maritime hegemony and the latter on regional counterbalance based on risk theory. This article attempts at explaining the puzzle of China's naval buildup through the lenses of geopolitics, adding a geopolitical dimension to the current debate. It suggests that the PRC's naval military development does not follow a Mahanian global maritime strategy aimed at challenging the US primacy worldwide, but rather a Tirpitzian regional approach focused on counterbalancing the US presence within the scope of China's sea power projection, that is, the Pacific region. To substantiate this hypothesis, the study compares diachronically contemporary Chinese naval arm race with Wilhelmine Germany's High Seas Fleet. The findings underscore that, in maritime terms, China's revisionism vis-à-vis the US somewhat resembles that of Imperial Germany vis-à-vis Imperial Britain, both aiming at regional counterbalance and anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) tactics rather than global maritime counterhegemony. Although Chinese sea power is still far from posing a serious threat to that of the US and its allies, an unrestrained continuation of Beijing's naval buildup could encourage arms races and direct confrontation due to regional security dilemmas.

The Foreign Policy of the USA Towards the PRC During Gerald Ford Presidency: 1974-1977

2019 ◽  
pp. 46-56
Author(s):  
Anatoliy V. Goncharenko ◽  
Lybov G. Polyakova
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
White House ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa

The article researches the US foreign policy towards the PRC during Gerald Ford presidency in 1974-1977. It describes the reasons, course and consequences of the intensification of the US foreign policy strategy in the Chinese direction during the investigated period. There was explored the practical realization of the “Pacific Doctrine”by Washington. The role of various groups in the American establishment in the question of the formation of the Chinese White House policy has been analyzed. The specific foreign policy actions of the administration of the US president Gerald Fordon the PRC in 1974-1977 are analyzed. The chief results of the foreign policy of the administration of the President of the United States Gerald Ford (1974-1977) concerning the PRC, which resulted from the real political steps taken by the leaders of both countries, was the establishment of systematic and reliable channels of bilateral ties, expansion of economic, scientific and cultural contacts, the beginning of a systematic exchange of views on the most important issues of international relations. In the second half of the 70’s of the twentieth century this dialogue ensured the continuity of China’s policy in Washington, which was based on the concept of a “balance of power”, while China played a complementary role in the foreign policy strategy of the White House. These factors formed the “Pacific Doctrine” of G. Ford, which gave Beijing the status of an American partner in maintaining a balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region and consolidated a positive assessment of the place and role of the People’s Republic of China in Asian politics in the United States of America. The return of American political thought to the ideas of the combination policy occurred in the formation of US-Soviet strategic parity and awareness of the ruling circles in the United States, due to the defeat in Vietnam, the limited resources of force influence on the international situation. Started in the United States the study of China’s behavior in the international arena and its power parameters made it possible then to draw a preliminary conclusion that the People’s Republic of China can fill the place of the missing link in the “triangle” of the global scheme – a place of counterweight to the USSR; this required the removal of a US-Chinese confrontation. However, the socio-political and ideological contradictions that were pushed to the foreground on the initial stage of the Chinese policy of the administration of G. Ford and the process of normalization of bilateral relations, again made themselves felt at a later stage. Their injection was promoted by the logic of the development of bilateral US-China relations, as well as by a number of internal objective and subjective reasons, as in the People’s Republic of China (a sharp increase in the struggle for power connected with the illness and death of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong), and in the United States (Gerald Ford made certain curtseys towards the American right-wing conservative forces and began to intensify approaches to Beijing and Moscow, and also the presidential campaign of 1976). Keywords: the USA, PRC, China, foreign policy, American-Chinese relations, “Pacific Doctrine”, Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger , Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping.

scholarly journals KEKUATAN LAUT AS DI YOKOSUKA JEPANG DALAM MENGHADAPI KEKUATAN LAUT TIONGKOK DI CHINA’S NEAR-SEAS REGION (2013-2017) [US MARITIME POWER IN YOKOSUKA, JAPAN FACING CHINA'S MARITIME POWER IN CHINA'S NEAR-SEAS REGION (2013-2017)]

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
Muhammad Fauzan Malufti ◽  
Arfin Sudirman
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Military Force ◽  
The Us ◽  
Sea Power ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Chinese Military ◽  
Basic Functions ◽  
New Policies ◽  
Security Concern

<p>This article aims to describe the function of US sea power in Yokosuka, Japan against Chinese sea power in China’s Near-Seas Region in 2013-2017. In the past two decades, the increasing of Chinese military power and coercive policy in the South, East, and Yellow China Sea, or the so-called China's Near-seas Region (CNR), have created regional security concern for the United States. The Chinese naval ability to carry out A2/AD operations in this area has eliminated the immunity of US warships that previously could operate freely without any significant threat. In order to confront the threat, the US government issued new policies, strategies and operational concepts where one of the most important elements of military force in charge of carrying it out was its sea power element in the form of surface warship stationed at the Yokosuka naval base. By using the concept of Sea Power and Maritime Warfare, this article concludes that in order to face the threats posed by China on CNR, US surface warships are expected to carry out strategies and operational concepts that are in line with two basic functions of sea power, sea control, and expedition operations albeit with a high risk in the event of war. This article uses a qualitative research method where data is collected through literature studies and interviews.</p><p><strong>Bahasa Indonesia Abstract:</strong> Artikel ini bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan fungsi kekuatan laut AS yang ditempatkan di Yokosuka Jepang dalam menghadapi kekuatan laut Tiongkok di China’s Near-seas Region pada tahun 2013-2017. Dalam dua dekade terakhir, peningkatan kekuatan militer dan aktivitas koersif Tiongkok di LTS, LTT, dan Laut Kuning, dikenal juga dengan nama China’s Near-seas Region (CNR), telah menciptakan kekhawatiran bagi Amerika Serikat. Kemampuan angkatan laut Tiongkok untuk melakukan operasi A2/AD diwilayah ini telah menghilangkan imunitas kapal-kapal perang AS yang sebelumnya dapat beroperasi secara bebas tanpa adanya ancaman berarti. Untuk menghadapi ancaman tersebut, militer AS mengeluarkan strategi maupun konsep operasional baru dimana salah satu unsur kekuatan militer paling utama yang bertugas menjalankannya adalah unsur kekuatan laut dalam wujud kapal-kapal perang permukaan yang ditempatkan di pangkalan angkatan laut Yokosuka, Jepang. Dengan menggunakan konsep Sea Power dan Maritime Warfare , artikel ini menyimpulkan bahwa guna menghadapi ancaman Tiongkok di CNR, kapal-kapal perang permukaan AS tersebut diharapkan dapat menjalankan srategi dan konsep operasional yang sesuai dengan fungsi dasar kekuatan laut yaitu pengendalian laut dan operasi ekspedisi meskipun dengan resiko yang tinggi jika terjadi perang. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif dimana data dikumpulkan melalui studi literatur dan juga wawancara.</p>

scholarly journals The Dimensions of the US-China Trade War

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Mohamad Zreik
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bilateral Agreements ◽  
China Trade ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Trade War

AbstractThe Chinese Ministry of Commerce issued a statement Friday morning, July 6, 2018, confirming the outbreak of a trade war between the United States and China. The statement came after the United States imposed tariffs on many Chinese goods, in violation of international and bilateral agreements, and the destruction of the concept of free trade which the United States calls for following it. It is a war of opposite directions, especially the contradiction between the new Trump policy and the Chinese approach. The proof is what US Defense Secretary James Matisse announced in Singapore in early June 2018 of “the full strategy of the new United States, in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific,” where China was the “sole enemy of the United States” in China’s geostrategic region. Intentions have become publicized, and trade war between the two economic giants is turning into a reality. This paper will give an overview of the US-China scenario of trade war, then a focused analysis on the Trump’s administration economic decision regarding China, and the consequences of this decision.

The Communist Contest for Status

2019 ◽  
pp. 82-133
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson ◽  
Alexei Shevchenko
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Competition ◽  
The West ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Economic Production ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
The Us ◽  
Catch Up

This chapter argues that both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) pursued social competition with the Western states while at the same time seeking recognition from the states they were trying to subvert. Stalin sought to increase the power and prestige of the Soviet state through coerced industrialization, and Khrushchev made an effort to “catch up and surpass” the West in economic production. The PRC sought to improve its status by allying with the Soviet Union, but the Chinese chafed under their status as “younger brothers” to their senior ally, and eventually Mao challenged the Soviets for leadership of the international communist movement. In the 1970s, China took advantage of the US need to balance Soviet military power by putting aside communist ideology to become a tacit ally of the United States, part of a “strategic triangle.”

scholarly journals Proving Chinese Law in the Courts of the United States

Amicus Curiae ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-215
Author(s):  
Richard K Wagner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Procedure ◽  
Business Culture ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Chinese Law ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Chinese Business ◽  
The Us

The volume of disputes heard by United States (US) courts containing a China element continues to be robust even against a backdrop of political rhetoric concerning an economic ‘de-coupling’ of the US and China. These cross-border disputes often involve Chinese parties and special issues, some of which concern Chinese business culture, but many of which involve interpreting questions of Chinese law. How is proving Chinese law accomplished in these cases and how have US courts performed in interpreting Chinese law? This article first discusses the approach to proving Chinese law in US courts. While expert testimony is often submitted and can be valuable to a US court, the applicable US rule offers no standards by which these opinions are to be judged. And, in the China context, without specific guidance, it can be challenging for a judge, unaccustomed with China or the Chinese legal system to determine which version of the law to believe. Moreover, under the applicable rule, the US court can simply ignore competing Chinese law opinions and conduct its own Chinese law legal research, presumably using English language sources. This can lead to interesting interpretations of Chinese law to say the least. The article anchors its discussion in an examination of those recent cases which have interpreted Article 277 of the Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China. This is the legal provision of Chinese law that can be implicated in certain situations involving cross-border discovery, and there are now numerous Article 277 cases among the reported US decisions. The article analyses Article 277 by placing it within the larger context of Chinese civil procedure and argues that the language used in the provision has a special meaning within Chinese evidence law that has been obscured in those US case decisions interpreting it, leading to erroneous results. The article concludes by offering judges and practitioners some suggestions for interpreting Chinese law in future US cases. Keywords: Chinese law; US courts; Article 277; deposition; cross-border discovery; Hague Evidence Convention; Chinese civil procedure.

scholarly journals Bicycling, Birding and #BLM across America in a Summer of Chaos

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Edwards
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
National Level ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Rural America ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
White Violence

From 6 June to 20 August, 2020, I undertook a 76-day, ~3800 mile bicycle trip across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. In this talk I will share with you some of the amazing people, landscapes and birds I encountered, mostly in rural towns and along blue highways. The gradually changing birdscape, both in sight and sound, underscored the sensitive ecological gradients to which birds respond, as well as the ability of some species to thrive in agricultural monocultures. Rivers large and small regularly benchmarked my progress, as well as the western journey of Lewis &amp; Clark over 200 years ago. The recent incidents in the US involving African Americans as targets of white violence inexorably caused me to festoon my bicycle with #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) signs and share my experiences on social media. I encountered a variety of reactions, often positive and occasionally sharply negative, in a sea of generosity and extraordinary kindness as I wheeled my way through towns on the brink of collapse, vast private ranches and the occasional city. Rural America exhibits an abundance of loyalty and empathy for local communities, yet it is sometimes hard for Americans – myself included – to empathize with people they have never met in person. Two imperatives I took away, with ramifications for both biodiversity and political stability, were the need to somehow bring divergent communities together and to encourage empathy at the national level, among communities that otherwise experience each other only on TV.

Burden-sharing: the US, Australia and New Zealand alliances in the Pacific islands

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Wallis ◽  
Anna Powles
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Burden Sharing ◽  
Military Capability ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Us

Abstract One of President Joseph Biden's foreign policy priorities is to ‘renew’ and ‘strengthen’ the United States' alliances, as they were perceived to have been ‘undermined’ during the Trump administration, which regularly expressed concern that allies were free-riding on the United States' military capability. Yet the broad range of threats states face in the contemporary context suggests that security assistance from allies no longer only—or even primarily—comes in the form of military capability. We consider whether there is a need to rethink understandings of how alliance relationships are managed, particularly how the goals—or strategic burdens—of alliances are understood, how allies contribute to those burdens, and how influence is exercised within alliances. We do this by analysing how the United States–Australia and Australia–New Zealand alliances operate in the Pacific islands. Our focus on the Pacific islands reflects the United States' perception that the region plays a ‘critical’ role in helping to ‘preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific region’. We conclude that these understandings need to be rethought, particularly in the Pacific islands, where meeting non-traditional security challenges such as economic, social and environmental issues, is important to advancing the United States, Australia and New Zealand's shared strategic goal of remaining the region's primary security partners and ensuring that no power hostile to their interests establishes a strategic foothold.

Mr. X and the Pacific

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Heer
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
The Impact

This book chronicles and assesses the little-known involvement of US diplomat George F. Kennan—renowned as an expert on the Soviet Union—in US policy toward East Asia, primarily in the early Cold War years. Kennan, with vital assistance from his deputy John Paton Davies, played pivotal roles in effecting the US withdrawal from the Chinese civil war and the redirection of American occupation policy in Japan, and in developing the “defensive perimeter” concept in the western Pacific. His influence, however, faded soon thereafter: he was less successful in warning against US security commitments in Korea and Indochina, and the impact of the Korean War ultimately eclipsed his strategic vision for US policy in East Asia. This was due in large part to Kennan’s inability to reconcile his judgment that the mainland of East Asia was strategically expendable to the United States with his belief that US prestige should not be compromised there. The book examines the subsequent evolution of Kennan’s thinking about East Asian issues—including his role as a prominent critic of US involvement in the Vietnam War—and the legacies of his engagement with the region.

China’s Relations with the United States

2020 ◽  
pp. 211-232
Author(s):  
Robert Sutter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Us Government

This chapter reviews Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People’s Republic of China (PRC) interactions with the United States since the 1940s, and it reveals a general pattern of the United States at the very top of China’s foreign priorities. Among those few instances where China seemed to give less attention to the United States was the post-2010 period, which saw an ever more powerful China advancing at US expense. However, China’s rapid advance in economic, military, and diplomatic power has progressively alarmed the US government, which now sees China as its main international danger. Looking forward into the future, deteriorating US-China relations have enormous consequences for both countries, the Asia-Pacific region, and the world.

Der Aufstieg Ostasiens in der Weltpolitik 1840–2000 (The Rise of East Asia in World Politics, 1840–2000). By Gottfried-Karl Kindermann. [Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001. €44.99. 727 pp. ISBN 3-421-05174-7.]

2003 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 1097-1098
Author(s):  
Reinhard Drifte
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
English Language ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Pacific War ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
Before And After

This monumental work is in many ways the essence of Professor Kindermann's 50 years' research on East Asia, theoretically based on the Munich school of neo-realism (of which he is the pre-eminent representative) and inspired by his many personal encounters with those Asian leaders who shaped the region's rise in world politics. It also introduces interesting research by other German scholars, which is often excluded from the English-language literature that dominates the Asian studies field. The focus of the analysis is on the foreign policy of the states in the West Pacific region (including Myanmar and Indochina), their interactions and their place in world politics. It is impossible to summarize the 34 chapters within this review. The books offer a superb chronological and contextual overview of a crucial period in East Asia that is highly readable and illustrated with relevant photos. The most space is devoted to China, documenting its rise from imperial victim to major economic power. The coverage of China's interaction with foreign powers and the domestic background is very detailed, especially concerning the Kuomintang before and after 1949, and the Taiwan issue. The account of the era after the Pacific War focuses mostly on the People's Republic of China. Several pages are devoted to the Quemoy crisis of 1954–55, which revealed the complexities of the US–PRC–Taiwan triangle. Kindermann demonstrates how this crisis was the first application of Washington's “calculated ambiguity” towards the PRC concerning Taiwan. A whole chapter is devoted to the second Taiwan crisis of 1958 and its aftermath in 1962. Kindermann's interviews in Taiwan show how the US actively prevented Chiang Kai-shek's plan of occupying two mainland Chinese cities to start the “liberation” of the PRC. There are four chapters on how the Communist Party established and maintained its rule over China, but the majority deal with China's foreign interactions. On Tibet, Kindermann argues that the 17-item agreement of 1951 between Tibetan leaders and the Communist government may have served as a tolerable solution to the Tibet issue and thus have prevented a lot of hardship for the Tibetan people, even though the Tibetan representatives had been coerced into signing it.

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