PLA Posturing for Conflict in the South China Sea?

[ErnstBlofeld]

Jamestown Foundation:

 

The recent revelation of a Second Artillery Corps (SAC) facility that is under development in China's southern coastal province, Guangdong, and the "unprecedented" maneuvers undertaken by the combined naval fleets of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in the South China Sea are only the latest in a string of developments that suggest changes in Chinese strategic posture may be underway (AsiaEye, August 3; South China Morning Post, July 30). These developments appear to be part of a larger effort by the Chinese military to accelerate the re-posturing of its strategic forces in light of thawing cross-Strait relations and to add strength to China's increasingly assertive claims to the South China Sea and other areas that Beijing considers of "core interest."

 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry's rhetoric of cooperation in resolving territorial disputes in the South China Sea has been replaced by a tone that has grown increasingly assertive in recent years. The latest escalation of tension in the South China Sea is widely seen as a Chinese response to U.S. efforts to mediate competing claims in the region. Growing tensions have been accompanied by an increased level of Chinese naval activity and advances in military modernization that appear directed at countering U.S. capabilities to intervene in the region. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi even went so far as to characterize the most recent U.S. overture as "an attack on China" (PRC Foreign Ministry website, July 26).

 

Edited September 23, 2010 by Rheo
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