Abstract
To probe China’s future prospects and potential impact on order at sea in East Asia, this chapter considers China’s naval development. While historically China’s efforts at sea ebbed and flowed with competing strategic priorities and reversals of fortune, since the “reform and opening up” beginning in the late 1970s, Beijing has at last gone to sea in a sustained, growing fashion. Erickson devotes particular attention to surveying the progressively broader and deeper maritime efforts under the leadership of Deng, Jiang, Hu, and Xi. Tables depicting China’s naval order of battle in each of these eras further document China’s development and deployment of a truly modern navy. Even as it remains regional in its core areas of focus, China has already emerged as one of the world’s great sea powers.
The views expressed here are solely those of the author, who may be contacted via www.andrewerickson.com. He thanks Dennis Blasko, Bernard Cole, Peter Dutton, and Paul Godwin for helpful comments.
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Erickson, A.S. (2016). China’s Naval Modernization, Strategies, and Capabilities. In: Bekkevold, J., Till, G. (eds) International Order at Sea. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58663-6_4
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