Chinese Nuclear Horn Grows Bolder (Daniel 7:7)

 Chinese Nuclear Subs in the Indian Ocean

An extended deployment has sent a powerful message to the Indian Navy.

 

By P K Ghosh

April 12, 2015

 

The deployment of a Chinese nuclear submarine – presumably a Type 093 Shang-class – as part of the anti-piracy patrol of two ships and a supply vessel operating off the Gulf of Aden has set alarm bells ringing loudly in the Indian Navy. The implications of such a strategically significant move are simply enormous, as analysts try to decipher the real reason behind deploying such a platform in the region.

Submarines are not appropriate platforms for dealing with pirates or with piracy. The Somali pirates are known to use small craft known as skiffs individually or as part of swarm tactics to attack ships, returning to larger mother ships nearby. This gives them large operating ranges. Such highly manoeuvrable crafts can hardly be chased by relatively slow moving submarines or torpedoed from underwater, making submarines quite superfluous to anti-piracy operations. Apart from this, in a region where the incidence of piracy has declined to negligible levels, such that other navies are scaling back their presence, China is actually increasing its patrol strength.

China has been conducting independent counter-piracy deployments, mainly in the Gulf of Aden area, since 2008 as part of its Military Operations Other than War (MOOTW) and ostensibly for the common good. Since such patrols require coordination, the Chinese have been cooperating closely with the Indian, Japanese and South Korean navies, although they operate independently.

However, the deployment of the nuclear submarine from December 13, 2014 to February 14, 2015 with the PLA(N) flotilla – the 18th convoy from its South Sea Fleet – was unique and raises questions about China’s agenda. The Indian Navy has told the government that the Chinese may have been conducting hydrological studies in India’s western seaboard, as the Chinese task force was also joined by a research vessel capable of bathymetric studies: mapping the depth of the ocean floors. But the Navy also conceded that it did not spot the Chinese boats in Indian territorial waters.

Hence the rationale for the deployment of the submarine was open to interpretation and analysis.
First, it is well known that the Chinese initiative to deploy ships under the benign guise of anti-piracy patrols was a master stroke aimed at operating for extended periods in distant seas, and more importantly in India’s strategic backyard. Simultaneously, China was able to cooperate with adversarial navies such as Japan and India, enabling it to evaluate these navies (and vice versa).

Second, the deployment sent a strategic message, especially to the Indian security establishment, who have endlessly debated the strategic implications of the Chinese naval foray into the IOR. Clearly, the PLA(N) has the capability to project and sustain its blue water reach, operating thousands of miles from its base for an impressive seven months.

Third, Chinese nuclear submarines like the earlier Xia class were constrained in their ability to operate for even short periods beyond nearby waters. The new Shang and Jin classes are far superior technologically, as this deployment has demonstrated. Consequently, China has reaffirmed its prowess in creating high-tech platforms, along with its ability to project power and demonstrate “blue water” capability in distant oceans.

Fourth, frequent operation in the Indian Ocean will enable China to get a feel for the hydrological conditions in the region, facilitating additional underwater deployments.

Finally, while other navies in the region are looking to reduce their presence in anti-piracy patrols because of the financial burden and the sharp fall in the number of piracy attacks in the region, China has not only maintained its strength but increased it at times. The most likely rationale for this is giving its ships, submarines and crew a “sustained feel” for the area, perhaps in anticipation of frequent deployments in the near future. Hence, it is not idle speculation to suggest that both the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea may become frequent hunting grounds for Chinese submarines, which could lie waiting at choke points or off Indian harbours to operate against the Indian Naval fleet in a crisis.

Clearly, India has a new maritime neighbour in China, which has the capacity to operate near Indian shores and in the Indian Ocean. India neglects this potential threat at its own peril.

Dr. P K Ghosh is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. He is the former lead co-chair of the CSCAP international Study Group on Naval Enhancement in Asia Pacific. He can be reached at pkghosh@orfonline.org

China Nuclear Horn Strengthens (Daniel 7:7)

China puts nuclear missiles on submarines

By David Tweed

Bloomberg News
POSTED: 07:02 a.m. HST, Dec 09, 2014

ASSOCIATED PRESS

In this April 23, 2009 photo, a Chinese Navy nuclear-powered submarine sails during an international fleet review in the waters off Qingdao, China, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of People’s Liberation Army Navy.

China is preparing to arm its stealthiest submarines with nuclear missiles that could reach Hawaii and the U.S. mainland, cloaking its arsenal with the invisibility needed to retaliate in the event of an enemy strike.

Fifty years after China carried out its first nuclear test, patrols by the almost impossible-to-detect JIN class submarines armed with nuclear JL-2 ballistic missiles will give President Xi Jinping greater agility to respond to an attack.

The nuclear-powered subs will probably conduct initial patrols with the missiles by the end of this year, “giving China its first credible sea-based nuclear deterrent,” according to an annual report to Congress submitted in November by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Deploying the vessels will burnish China’s prestige as Xi seeks to end what he calls the “cold war” mentality that resulted in U.S. dominance of Asia-Pacific security. Since coming to power, Xi has increased military spending with a focus on longer-range capacity, including plans to add to the country’s tally of a single aircraft carrier.

“For the first time in history, China’s nuclear arsenal will be invulnerable to a first strike,” said independent strategist Nicolas Giacometti, who has written analysis for The Diplomat and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s the last leap toward China’s assured nuclear-retaliation capability.”

China’s nuclear-defense strategy is engineered to provide retaliation capability in the event of attack from nuclear powered nations as far away as the U.S. and also from Russia and India, according to Felix Chang, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.

While China doesn’t view North Korea as a direct nuclear risk, officials are concerned about what might happen if North Korea threatened South Korea or Japan and the region became unstable, Chang said.

China’s nuclear-armed submarines will be “useful as a hedge to any potential nuclear threats, including those from North Korea, even if they are relatively small,” he said.

The deployment of the submarines could pressure China to assure foreign militaries that its navy chiefs and political leaders can communicate with and control them. Chinese and U.S. ships and planes are coming into greater proximity in the Pacific as China asserts its claims to territory in the South China Sea and East China Sea, risking near misses or a clash.

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview in January that ex-President Hu Jintao “did not have strong control” of the People’s Liberation Army. The “best example,” Gates said, was China’s roll out of its J-20 stealth fighter jet during a visit he made in January 2010. The event seemed to catch Hu unaware, Gates said.

Since coming to power Xi has tightened his grip on the military, taking over as head of the Central Military Commission in November 2012, when he became Communist Party chief. Hu waited about two years before becoming chairman of the commission.

“China is going to have to reassure their adversaries that those submarines are under positive control at all times,” said Malcolm Davis, an assistant professor of China-Western relations at Bond University on Australia’s Gold Coast.

“Positive control” refers to the procedures to ensure the CMC’s absolute control of its nuclear assets, such as the authorization codes it would send to submarines, where, after verification by the commander and probably two other officers, missiles would be launched.

“It demands that China set up appropriate command and control infrastructure to ensure that the CMC can keep in touch with the submarines, even when they are at sea and under the water,” said Davis. “The U.S., U.K., France and Russia all maintain such communications capabilities for ensuring positive control” of their submarines at sea.

By assuring potential enemies that weapons will only be fired if ordered by central command, China’s military would increase the deterrent value of its nuclear-armed submarines, he said.

“Those assurances are likely to be made at the highest level military-to-military meetings behind closed doors,” Davis said. Otherwise China is largely expected to keep its nuclear capabilities secret.

“High-confidence assessments of the numbers of Chinese nuclear capable ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads are not possible due to China’s lack of transparency about its nuclear program,” the U.S. report to Congress said. The Pentagon hasn’t provided an estimate of the size of China’s nuclear warhead stockpile since 2006, according to the report.

China’s defense ministry did not reply to faxed questions about when regular patrols by nuclear-armed JIN-class submarines would begin, or China’s nuclear strategy.

The modernization of China’s nuclear forces is focused on improving the capacity to deter other nuclear powers, said Giacometti, speaking by phone from Brussels.

Until 2006, its only ballistic missile able to deliver a nuclear warhead to the continental U.S. was the liquid-fueled, silo-based DF-5A, he said. These were considered vulnerable because fueling takes a few hours during which the missile must remain in its silo. To protect them, China built mock silos and adopted a policy of secrecy that made a disarming first strike harder to execute.

In 2006, China introduced the land-based mobile DF-31A ballistic missiles, whose 6,959-mile maximum range could reach the U.S. The missiles are solid-fueled, so can be fired almost immediately if warheads are pre-fitted, Giacometti said.

The U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities — from satellites to high-altitude drones, such as the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk — can monitor vast areas of territory and detect mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, he said. Any information gleaned could be transmitted to U.S. strike assets, from long-range high-speed missiles to B-2 Spirit Stealth Bombers, to take out the launchers before they fire.

In comparison to the land-based launchers, nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines that rarely need to surface are much better at hiding.

Right now, China has three of those — the JIN class — and is likely to add two more by 2020, according to the Commission’s report. Each could carry 12 JL-2 missiles, which after a decade of development “appear to have reached initial operational capability,” it said.

The JL-2’s range of about 4,598 miles means China could conduct nuclear strikes against Alaska if it unleashed the missiles from waters near China; against Alaska and Hawaii if launched from waters south of Japan; against Alaska, Hawaii, and western continental U.S. if fired from waters west of Hawaii; and against all 50 U.S. states if launched from waters east of Hawaii, the report said.

“The big scoop would be determining where those submarine patrols will take place,” said Chang.

The submarines are expected to initially confine themselves to China’s coastal waters and the South China Sea where they could roam with little chance of detection. For the missiles to reach Hawaii or the continental U.S. the submarines would need to foray into the western Pacific and beyond, which Davis from Bond University said would be “more challenging because they’d have to run the gauntlet of U.S. anti-submarine capabilities.”

China’s advances are cause for concern in some parts of the U.S. defense establishment.

“We must continue to modernize our nuclear capabilities,” Adm. Harry Harris said Dec. 2 at his nomination hearing to become commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, when asked how the U.S. should respond to China’s build up. Harris said that he considered North Korea, which is developing its own nuclear arsenal, to be the biggest threat to security in Asia.

Analysts don’t expect China to modify its longstanding “no-first-use” nuclear policy that states its weapons will only be used if China comes under nuclear attack.

Having enhanced its nuclear-deterrence capability, China may begin to communicate more about the planned evolution of its nuclear forces, Giacometti said.

“More openness on China’s side might then open up more space for confidence-building measures and lay the ground for future arms control discussions,” he said.