Once limited to port visits and largely symbolic joint exercises, PLAN activities in the South Atlantic now include independent operations and training.
Ryan Martinson, an assistant professor at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island, suggested in the last five years, China’s presence in the south Atlantic had expanded from anti-piracy operations and port visits to training and the installation of a military port at Doraleh in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, a key strategic location close to the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea and Persian Gulf. In a report published by London-based think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Mr Martinson wrote: “Once limited to port visits and largely symbolic joint exercises, PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) activities in the South Atlantic now include independent operations and training. “It has also shown early efforts to develop mastery of the ocean battlespace environment in key areas of the South Atlantic.”
Mr Martinson’s report said China’s naval presence had become more sophisticated, with longer missions.
In one instance, a PLAN task force had spent 24 days in the Atlantic before putting in at Cape Town, South Africa, in August 2017.
In a second, a PLAN task force spent 13 days sailing from Douala port in Cameroon to Cape Town, also significantly longer than a typical voyage.
The Chinese guided missile destroyer Guangzhou (Image: GETTY)
The People’s Liberation Army (Image: GETTY)
Mr Martinson said: “Much of the data Chinese scientists collect is dual-use and was likely to be shared with counterparts in the military.”
Analysis suggested Cape Town, on South Africa’s southwest coast, was PLAN’s preferred stop, with vessels calling there a minimum of six times between June 2014 and June 2018.
Naval activity was increasing in accordance with a push to protect China’s overseas interests, Mr Martinson said.
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PLAN has made frequent visits to Cape Town (Image: Google)
Of the five African countries with the most direct investment from China, four – South Africa, Congo, Nigeria and Angola – faced the South Atlantic, the report pointed out.
However, it also said the increased PLAN presence could reflect a shift in China’s strategy for handling competition in East Asia.
Mr Martinson wrote: “Chinese deployment of naval power beyond maritime East Asia likely reflects Beijing’s incorporation of certain elements of an ‘exterior’ strategy into its overall approach for coping with the US threat.
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The Chinese guided missile destroyer Guangzhou docked in east Africa (Image: Handout)
China’s President Xi Jinping (Image: GETTY)
“By developing robust naval capabilities abroad, the logic goes, China might compel the US to adjust its force posture, shifting air and sea assets away from the western Pacific to account for Chinese threats elsewhere.”
Charlie Lyons Jones, a researcher from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s defence and strategy programme, told the South China Morning Post the operations of the Chinese navy in the South Atlantic suggessted Beijing had ambitions to sustain a “blue-water force” like the US Navy.
He added:,“However, while China has a military base in Djibouti, the PLAN probably lacks the basing infrastructure and logistics enablers needed for successfully operating in the South Atlantic during a high-intensity conflict with a peer-adversary such as the United States Navy.
US and Chinese military power compared (Image: Daily Express)
“Fleet air defence, anti-submarine warfare and logistical support tailored for blue-water operations would be likely vulnerabilities for the PLAN while operating in the South Atlantic. However, these are creases that Beijing is probably trying to iron out.”
In a defence white paper published last month, China outlined the need for “combat readiness and military training in real combat conditions”, while talking up its new war-fighting capabilities in the western Pacific and disputed South China Sea.
However, speaking last month, Professor Eugene Gholz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, said there was still a long way to go before China’s military could be compared with that of the US.
The Horn of Africa, overlooking east Asia (Image: Google)
He told Express.co.uk: “I do not see a Chinese attempt to outclass the United States militarily anytime in the near future. That may be a very long term goal, of course, but thus far, Chinese military investment emphasises assets to make it hard for the US military to operate near the Chinese littoral – and to make it hard for the United States to execute offensive operations against China, whether in pursuit of an offensive strategy or as a means of defending US allies in Asia.
“The Chinese are nowhere close to competing with the United States in the blue waters of the world. There is no meaningful Chinese effort to outclass the US military – say, to develop a capability to overcome U.S. defences such that the Chinese could launch an attack on some country in Latin America or Africa.
“The United States, of course, seeks to maintain the ability to attack any country in the world, at any time, regardless of who promises to defend that country. The US and Chinese militaries are fundamentally not comparable and will not be for decades.”