WASHINGTON, June 26 — Concern that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] is bolstering its military capability in order to wage war with the U.S. aside, “the military balance in the Indo-Pacific is becoming more unfavorable for the United States and our allies,” according to Adm. Philip Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
He told the Senate Armed Services that China has been beefing up its arsenal of weaponry and its military presence in the region.
Thus, he said, “Our deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific must demonstrate the capability, the capacity, and the will to convince Beijing unequivocally [that] the costs of achieving their objectives by the use of military force are simply too high.”
Davidson pointed out that the CCP’s Naval presence in the Pacific is growing at an alarming rate.
According to the Indo-Pacific Command, within the next four or five years, the CCP will have stationed three aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific, and it is projected that we will have just one. They will have 12 amphibious assault ships, and we will have just four in the region.
And their Navy will police the Pacific with 108 modern multi-warfare combatant ships compared to just four that we will have to patrol those waters.
Meanwhile, it’s looking more and more like the Wuhan Leak that triggered the global COVID pandemic may not have been an accident.
In an article published by the Hoover Institution, China expert Gordon Chang noted that “It is especially troubling that Beijing in late January [a matter of just weeks before the pandemic was discovered] sent ‘China’s top biowarfare expert,’ Major General Chen Wei, to head the P-4 lab there. Chen, many speculate, was dispatched to clean up evidence of a leak or the existence of a weapons program.”
Chen says that “The case against China rests not only on how the coronavirus came to first infect humans—something scientists will argue about for years—but also what Chinese ruler Xi Jinping did once the pathogen crippled his country. In short, he took steps he knew or had to know would spread the disease beyond his borders.”
He adds that the post-Trump administration has turned a blind eye to what happened.
But China’s ambitions appear to be global in nature.
While on a fact-finding mission in the middle east, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, met with reporters and stated that “The Middle East writ broadly is an area of intense competition between the great powers. And I think that as we adjust our posture in the region, Russia and China will be looking very closely to see if a vacuum opens that they can exploit. I think they see the United States shifting posture to look at other parts of the world and they sense there may be an opportunity there.”
McKenzie accepts that there is a need to deal with the Chinese threat in the Pacific, but, he says, the U.S. is a “global power” and as such, we cannot lose sight of the bigger picture. The military brass, including McKenzie, has pointed out that the CCP threat is also global in nature with an expanding interest and presence in Africa, South America, and the Middle East.
It is interesting to note that China’s first overseas naval base is located in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. If Djibouti is not an official ally of the CCP, it is certainly a willing host. The base can support aircraft carriers, and some 2,000 troops are stationed there, according to Gen. Stephen Townsend, head of the U.S. Africa Command.
Townsend also notes that Beijing is currently sounding other countries on Africa’s west coast with the aim of creating a naval facility that can host submarines and/or aircraft carriers. “They’re looking for a place where they can rearm and repair warships.”