A STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE – U.S. NAVAL INSTITUTE
By Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Kirby, Australian Army, and Commander Nicholas Trongale, Royal Australian Navy
China—one of Australia’s most significant trading partners—is seeking greater influence over Australia’s immediate region. In addition to its economic and diplomatic dominance over its neighbors, China is becoming a major figure in regional infrastructure development, notably communications, energy, and ports, seeking control through what some commentators have described as
debt-trap diplomacy.”1
All this is occurring while the People’s Liberation Army Navy is investing heavily in force projection capabilities.
Experts differ over the strategic purpose of Chinese amphibious capability. While some argue it is a tool for regional control with a focus on Taiwan, others see it as part of a trajectory to a blue-water sea-control capability.2
Regardless, militarized artificial features in the South China Sea, potential control of air and sea ports in the southwest Pacific, and a growing amphibious capability create a force posture that could mirror General Douglas MacArthur’s World War II Island-hopping.
1. Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, quoted in Peter Hartcher, “Pacific Crisis a Direct Threat to Australia,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 October 2018.
2. See Grant Newsham, “Has the PLA Really Overlooked Its Amphibious Force?” The Lowy Interpreter, 1 June 2018.