This book analyzes the rise of China’s naval power and its possible strategic consequences from a wide variety of perspectives – technological, economic, and geostrategic – while employing a historical-comparative approach throughout. Since naval development requires huge financial resources and mostly takes place within the context of transnational industrial partnerships, this study also consciously adopts an industry perspective. The systemic problems involved in warship production and the associated material, financial, technological, and political requirements currently remain overlooked aspects in the case of China. Drawing on first-hand working experience in the naval shipbuilding industry, the author provides transparent criteria for the evaluation of different naval technologies’ strategic value, which other researchers can draw upon as a basis for further research in such diverse fields as International Security Studies, Naval Warfare Studies, Chinese Studies, and International Relations.

This book is a structured net assessment of China’s military power by a reputed and well-known Indian military analyst. The growth of Chinese military power has been examined with emphasis on how it primarily affects India. The book analyses how India must respond. It has an exhaustively researched section on how the Chinese PLA has performed in actual combat since 1949, and a detailed analysis of the evolution of China’s military doctrines and strategic Culture. The most dangerous for India is the exponential growth in the Chinese Airpower (PLAAF). China has already changed Asia’s balance of power.

The topic of China's rise and what it really means for the global and regional order is the subject of intense debate. In this volume, top scholars address China's power today, compare China's power with that of the USA, and forecast China's power in 2025.

This book offers an assessment of China’s assertive foreign policy behavior with a special focus on Chinese policies in the South China Sea (SCS). By providing a detailed account of the events in the SCS and by analyzing power dynamics in the region, it identifies the driving forces behind China’s assertive foreign policy. Considering China’s power on a domestic as well as an international level, it examines a number of different sources of hard and soft power, including military, economics, geopolitics, and domestic legitimacy. The author demonstrates that Chinese assertiveness in the SCS can be explained not only by increases in China’s power, but also by effective reactions to other actors’ foreign policy changes. The book will appeal to scholars in international relations, especially those interested in a better understanding of South China Sea developments, China’s political power and foreign policy, and East Asian international affairs.

This book offers an analysis of the four central regional security themes relevant to the policy-focussed discussions at the annual IISS Shangri-La Dialogue. Namely: The evolving roles of the United States and China in Asia-Pacific security; Responses by the US and regional states to regional security tensions, particularly in the South China Sea; Emerging security questions relating to nuclear weapons, missiles and military cyber capabilities; The prospects for regional security cooperation, including the challenges for the ASEAN-centred architecture.

Since at least the early 1950s, the entire Asia-Pacific region has struggled with the complicated and complex relationship between China and Taiwan--today the Taiwan question is considered a potential flashpoint for a much larger international conflict. Bringing together experts from the United States and Taiwan, Assessing the Threat provides a comprehensive look at the dangers of military escalation in the Taiwan Strait, the latest advances in capabilities of the People's Liberation Army, and China's security relationship with the United States and the Asia-Pacific. There is increasing concern that Beijing is steadily shifting the balance of power across the Taiwan Strait in its favor. Recent advances in Chinese air and naval power, along with changes in PLA doctrine, have the potential to weaken deterrence and destabilize the cross-strait military balance. At this critical juncture, there is not question that this issue requires sustained, detailed analysis and that many measures can and should be taken to reduce the threat of conflict between China, Taiwan, and the United States. Assessing the threat offers such analysis as well as concrete suggestions and crisis management practices for government and military leaders in Washington, D.C., Beijing, and Taipei.

This book examines the large but neglected topic of the development of maritime power from both an historical and a contemporary point of view. Navies have never been more important than they are now, in a century becoming, as widely expected, increasingly and profoundly maritime. The growing competition between China and Russia with the United States and its allies and partners around the world is essentially sea-based. The sea is also central to the world's globalised trading system and to its environmental health. Most current crises are either sea-based or have a critical maritime element to them. What happens at sea will help shape our future. Against that background, this book uses both history and contemporary events to analyse how maritime power and naval strength has been, and is being, developed. In a reader-friendly way, it seeks to show what has worked and what has not, and to uncover the recurring patterns in maritime and naval development which explain past, present and future success - and failure. It reflects on the historical experience of all navies, but in particular it poses the question of whether China is following the same pattern of naval development illustrated by Britain at the start of the 18th century, which led to two centuries of naval dominance. This book will be of much interest to students of maritime power, naval studies, and strategic studies, as well as to naval professionals around the world.

Asia is headed toward an uncertain and potentially volatile future in the maritime arena. The two rising Asian powers, China and India, dependent as they are on seaborne commerce for their economic well-being, have clearly set their eyes on the high seas. Yoshihara and Holmes offer a stark warning that many strategists in Beijing and New Delhi appear spellbound by the more militant visions of sea power. Indeed, both powers appear poised to develop the capacity to control the sea lanes through which the bulk of their commerce flows. If they enter the nautical environment with such a martial mindset, Asia could very well fall victim to regional rivalries that give rise to a vicious cycle of competition. Yoshihara and Holmes provide the first examination of the simultaneous rise of two naval powers and the potential impact that such an oceanic reconfiguration of power in Asia could have on long-term regional stability. Their study analyzes the maritime interests and strategies of the littoral states in Asia as they prepare for the expected reordering of nautical affairs. This long-overdue assessment revisits underlying assumptions that have prevailed among strategy-makers and provides a concrete policy framework for reducing the risk of confrontation in Asian waters.

This book develops a new approach in explaining how a nation's Grand Strategy is constituted, how to assess its merits, and how grand strategies may be comparatively evaluated within a broader framework. The volume responds to three key problems common to both academia and policymaking. First, the literature on the concept of grand strategy generally focuses on the United States, offering no framework for comparative analysis. Indeed, many proponents of US grand strategy suggest that the concept can only be applied, at most, to a very few great powers such as China and Russia. Second, characteristically it remains prescriptive rather than explanatory, ignoring the central conundrum of why differing countries respond in contrasting ways to similar pressures. Third, it often understates the significance of domestic politics and policymaking in the formulation of grand strategies - emphasizing mainly systemic pressures. This book addresses these problems. It seeks to analyze and explain grand strategies through the intersection of domestic and international politics in ten countries grouped distinctively as great powers (The G5), regional powers (Brazil and India) and pivotal powers hostile to each other who are able to destabilize the global system (Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia). The book thus employs a comparative framework that describes and explains why and how domestic actors and mechanisms, coupled with external pressures, create specific national strategies. Overall, the book aims to fashion a valid, cross-contextual framework for an emerging research program on grand strategic analysis.

This comprehensive Research Handbook examines the key drivers of the arms trade, mapping the main trends in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. It also explores the principal defence markets internationally, including the US, China, India, Russia and the UK in greater detail.