FPRI: China’s Military Capabilities and the New Geopolitics

FPRI: China’s Military Capabilities and the New Geopolitics
Posted by: Newsteam - City of London Newsroom (Remote)

The Foreign Policy Research Unit [FPRI] has put together a valuable and thought provoking analysis discussing China’s Military Capabilities and its Geopolitical ambitions.

They highlight that any discussion on Chinese global goals inevitably draws attention to the build-up of naval weaponry in recent years, with each year bringing fresh confirmation of China’s ability to leapfrog existing assessments of the size of its navy.

They cite that in April this year [2020], China constructed a second Type 075 warship, a class specifically designed to compete in amphibious capability with the American Wasp class ships. Two more are anticipated, as are two more aircraft carriers. These are clearly designed to match American naval capability, and raise interest in China’s ability to sustain distant interest by sea, most obviously in the Indian Ocean, but wherever Chinese Geopolitical interests may be favoured by naval power projection.

China´s maritime interests are not only the South-West Pacific, where it has been actively developing alliance partnerships, much to the disquiet of Australia, but also the Caribbean.

Moreover, Chinese maritime companions include Equatorial Guinea, so the notion that China would possibly “limit” itself to dominating a “close to China” policy i.e. the East and South China Seas is
fantasy. Even if that was their intention, they want to save external intervention most obviously from the US and Japanese navies. 

We thoroughly recommend that our readers with an interest in China´s Geopolitical ambitions should head over to the full article on the FPRU website. The full link is here: https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/05/chinas-military-capabilities-and-the-new-geopolitics

NB: Image for illustration purposes only and not representative of the Type 075.