China’s giant ‘Pearl Necklace’

Up until some 10 years ago, Western scholars would say that “The only way for China to occupy Taiwan is to mobilize millions of its people who are skilled in swimming and let them cross the strait.” It was a joke that was meant to look down China’s naval force that only had capacity to guard its coastal region. Things are completely different now. Yale University Professor Paul Kennedy said “While interest in maritime force is waning in Europe, reinforcement of naval force constitutes a major trend in East Asia like the time when European powers proactively pursued advance into oceans.” China is the country that is the most noticeable in the so-called “trend of maritime power shifting eastwards.”

China recently decided to provide 507 million U.S. dollars in loans to a project to expand the Port of Aden and Port of Mocha in Yemen. The world’s most populous country secured the right to operate and manage the Port of Gwadar in Pakistan last February. Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to invest 10 billion dollars in the Port of Bagamoyo in Tanzania last March. If ports that China has secured or invested in, ranging from Southeast Asia to the Indian Ocean and to the African continent, are linked with each other, it creates the shape of a “Pearl Necklace.” It is amazing to see China’s tactic, through which it has advanced and invested in one after another foreign ports dotting the regions, and linked with each other with a single line.

China’s flagship maritime strategy is the “Island Chain,” a concept that Chief Naval Commander Liu Huaqing presented in 1982. The aim of the Island Chain is for China to expand its naval control to counter the U.S. The first chain is a line linking Okinawa, Taiwan and South China Sea, and the second is a line connecting U.S. territories of Saipan, Guam and Palau Islands. The Pearl Chain is a military strategy that Beijing openly pursues, but the goal of the Pearl Necklace is comprehensive. China claims that acquiring foreign ports is a measure taken for commercial and economic purposes, but the U.S. and India suspects that they could transform into military hubs.

China’s offensive maritime policy affects the Korean Peninsula as well. The “forecasted map of Chinese navy’s overseas bases and ports distribution 10 years from now,” which was published in the online edition of the Global Times in China, includes the Port of Chongjin in North Korea. China already secured the right to operate Pier One at Najin Port in the North. If Chinese naval fleets broadly navigate across the East Sea by using North Korea’s ports, what would happen to us? China’s Pearl Necklace can prove to be a “giant shackle” that was put on the neck of Chunhyangi, the woman of chaste in the ancient Korean novel, to suffocate us.

Editorial Writer Bhang Hyeong-nam (hnbhang@donga.com)