Wu Shicun, the president of China's National Institute for South China Sea Studies, has been solid over the years that all of Beijing's actions boil down to securing strategic access to the opens seas. The Beltway, in contrast, sees it as the attempt to secure a "Chinese lake." It is, in fact, about China securing its own naval backyard -- the crucial entry and exit point for China's complex global supply chains.
Beijing ultimately aims at puncturing the US belief that it must have full, unrestricted "access" to the seven seas, the bedrock of its Empire of Bases. China is now in a position to successfully defend the strategic southern island of Hainan. Yulin naval base in Hainan hosts China's expanded submarine fleet, which not only features stalwarts such as the 094A Jin-class submarine, but has the capability to deliver China's new generation ICBM, the JL-3, with an estimated range of 12,000km. So China now is able not only to protect but also to project power, aiming ultimately at unrestricted access to the Western Pacific.
Initially, the US counterpunch to all this was "Anti-Access," or A2, plus Area Denial, which in Pentagonese translates as A2/AD. Yet China has incrementally evolved its own very sophisticated A2/AD tactics, including cyber-warfare; submarines equipped with cruise missiles; and most of all anti-ship ballistic missiles such as the Dongfeng 21-D, the ultimate nightmare for those sitting duck billion-dollar US aircraft carriers.
A program called Pacific Vision, funded by the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessments, eventually came up with the Air-Sea Battle concept. Virtually everything about Air-Sea Battle is classified. But even as the concept was being elaborated, China mastered the art of long-range ballistic missiles -- a lethal threat to the Empire of Bases, fixed and/or floating.
What is known is that the core Air-Sea Battle concept, in Orwellian Pentagonese, is "NIA/D3": "networked, integrated forces capable of attack-in-depth to disrupt, destroy and defeat adversary forces." To break through the fog, this is how the Pentagon would trample over Chinese A2/AD -- being able to attack all sorts of Chinese command and control centers in a swarm of "surgical operations."
So these, in a nutshell, are the extremely high stakes in the event of the Trump administration ever daring to install a blockade in the South China Sea.
The recent diplomatic charm offensive by China spells out the absurdity of any military offensive against an ASEAN member: it's bad for business. The environment after The Hague's ruling -- as the Laos summit proved -- points toward long-term diplomatic solutions for all South China Sea disputes.
In parallel, Trump or no Trump, the indispensable nation's military hegemony over the South China Sea must always be undisputed. But already it is not. China has positioned itself as a cunning, asymmetrical aspirant to "peer competitor." It's not a matter of "if" but "when" there is a serious confrontation between Red Rooster Trump and Red Rooster Xi over "access" to the South China Sea.
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