The Growing Reach of China’s Navy
Military modernisation programme includes capacity building to cater for China's growing global footprint and international interests. this will involve multiple missions gradually shifting from near seas-defence to the far seas which includes power proje
China is steadily building a modern and regionally powerful navy, officially called the People's liberation army (navy) (Pla-n), with incremental growing capacity building for conducting operations beyond China's near seas region. China's improving naval capabilities pose a potential challenge to india's interest in the indian Ocean region (IOR) apart from challenging US long-standing superiority over the Pacific region. it also causes conflict of interest with Japan, Philippines, south Korea, Vietnam and indonesia.
Blue Print of Modernisation
Envisaged Role. defence analysts believe that China's naval modernisation effort is geared towards carrying out the following roles:
Managing the taiwan problem militarily if the contingency so exists.
Power projection or defending China's territorial claims in the south and east China sea.
implementing China's vision that it has the right to regulate foreign military activities in its 200-mile maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Defending China's commercial sea lines of communication (SLOCs) like the one linking China to the Persian gulf.
Degrading US influence in the Western Pacific and thereby asserting China’s status as a leading regional power and major world power.
To synergise with the above roles China wants its navy to be capable of carrying out anti-access/area-denial (a2/ad) to deter US intervention in a conflict in China's maritime regions over taiwan or any other issue. if that fails then it will be able to delay the arrival or reduce the effectiveness of us forces.
Additional roles for China's navy include conducting maritime security
(including anti-piracy) operations, evacuating Chinese nationals from foreign countries when necessary and conducting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations. Military modernisation programme includes capacity building to cater for China's growing global footprint and international interests. this will involve multiple missions gradually shifting from near seas defence to the far seas which includes power projection apart from other roles mentioned above. China's 2015 Military strategy, released in May 2015, also stresses placing an increased emphasis on maritime operations, among other things.