China: Naval display a flexing of its muscles

China is a powerful country in four ways; territory, population size, economy and world politics. It is one of the largest countries in the world, but it had to work hard and compete to become big in the economy and world politics. It borders 14 countries and has a coastline of 14,500,000 kilometres or 9,000 miles.

It was invaded at least 470 times from the sea, leading to a century of humiliation which it struggled to overcome. On its way to victory, Chairman Mao Zedong ordered the capture of naval positions as a way of fighting imperialists. China eventually succeeded in October 1949 with the proclamation at the Tiananmen Square and then went on, in September 1950, to found a navy as an outshoot of the Peoples Liberation Army, PLA, which became PLA, Navy or PLAN.

At present, PLAN ranks third after the US and Russia, and is growing in terms of modernisation and number of available war vessels. It held big celebrations showcasing its naval might. The display of China’s maritime prowess, officially to mark 70 years PLAN, combined with discussions on BRI and SGR extensions, is notice to the world that China has arrived.

No longer looking inward, it is outward looking and rearranging “strategic” thinking. While setting aside Halford Mackinder’s claim, after climbing Mount Kenya, that Eastern Europe was the global heartland, China embraces Alfred Thayer Mahan’s prescription of having a big navy in order to protect big sea wealth.

Strategic thinking

With Xi as the pilot, the navy on display helps to turn China into that modern heartland of global power. Although it is militarily third to the United States and Russia, it is at the top in strategic thinking and in some socio-economic areas.

It leads in infrastructure and construction industry with its high speed railroads that are connecting different countries with China. This explains the reason heads of state and governments keep going to China to negotiate financing and implementation of big projects because few other powers have the capacity or willingness.

This reality is a deliberate undertaking under three of China’s most forceful leaders who changed China and global politics. First was Mao Zedong, the official liberator of China and the founder of the PLAN. By the time of his death in 1976, Mao had made China a global power to reckon with.

It had humiliated the US in the Korean War, built its own nuclear capacity, fought border wars with India and the Soviet Union, abandoned its revolution adventures, was admitted to the United Nations with the help of the Africans, and had mended geopolitical fences with the United States. Thereafter, starting with Richard Nixon, US officials made a habit of paying homage to China’s Mao or Deng.

Chinese Characteristics

The second power man was Deng Xiaoping who rectified Mao’s economic errors by mounting ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’ which, like Kenya’s 1965 Sessional Paper Number 10 on African Socialism, was unabashed capitalism in ‘socialistic’ garb. Deng advised the Chinese to hide power, become rich, borrowed big ideas from the capitalists, reformed Chinese power structure and succession principles, and entertained people with such homilies as the irrelevancy of the color of the cat as long as it caught the mice.

He never, however, abandoned communism as a political philosophy and was unamused by Mikhail Gorbachev’s confused advice on governance. As Gorbachev’s Soviet Union was collapsing in 1989, Deng ruthlessly put down political demonstrations at Tiananmen Square and returned to chasing economic mice using capitalistic cats.

The third power man, Xi Jinping, combines the political and economic attributes of Mao and Deng. He aims to surpass both and has overturned Deng’s advice to hide power with his display of naval prowess. He goes out of his way to make the Chinese way the global way through deliveries and accommodating philosophies about shared destinies.

While China’s main competitor for global influence, the United States of America, is busy antagonizing itself and the rest of the world with unreasonable demands, Xi invites leaders to discuss commonalities and differences.

One of his major instruments for attracting the world to China is his Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, whose two ends are in Europe and China. Along the way is the maritime component that links Africa to the main belt.

Xi is generous to those who want infrastructure overhaul that ends up linking them to the BRI. This makes China the global heartland. The navy display buttressed that point.

Prof Munene teaches History and International Relations at USIU