China’s Naval Buildup as a Status-Seeking Behavior

• In Event: Chinese Naval Power

Abstract

China is building up its naval power at a high rate. Beijing has numerically largest navy and is constructing and commissioning new cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and amphibious assault ships (Department of Defense 2023). Meanwhile, Beijing also made “notable progress” on its third aircraft carrier, Fujian, in 2023 (Funaiole et al. 2023). Despite China’s growing naval capabilities, how China plans to use these new capabilities remains opaque. Admittedly, the emphasis on the maritime domain was first codified in 2012 and China’s naval strategy gradually switches to “near seas defense and far seas protection.” Since 2014, China’s overall military strategy has emphasized maritime military struggle. Nevertheless, as Wuthnow and Fravel (2022) point out, the concept of “maritime military struggle” remains underdeveloped and the 2019 Military Strategic Guidelines also seems to reaffirm the current approach.

Against this backdrop, this paper seeks to answer the following question: Why does China’s naval strategy lag behind its massive and rapid naval buildup? We argue that this lag exists because seeking a maritime great power status, rather than maritime security, is a main driver behind China’s naval buildup. The existing literature on status has contributed to the understanding of rising powers’ strategies. (Pu and Schweller 2014; Ward 2017; Pu 2019; Mukherjee 2022) Drawing on the status literature, we argue that Chinese leaders are keen on not only protecting China’s maritime interests but also being recognized as a maritime great power. Accordingly, China’s naval buildup proceeds without articulating a new direction of its naval strategy, or how to best use and integrate its naval capabilities to achieve China’s political goal.

To test our hypothesis, we use authoritative sources such as China’s white papers and government statements, as well as publications by the People’s Liberation Army, think tank reports, and scholarly articles. This paper contributes to our understanding of China’s contemporary behavior. Our study shows that as China’s capabilities are growing, Beijing is more attentive to both material and symbolic interests. Our paper also produces policy implications. Naval competition is one focus of the contemporary U.S.-China relations, and China’s naval buildup has drawn much attention from policymakers in the United States and other states in the Asia-Pacific. Understanding Beijing’s motives behind its naval buildup helps envision a pertinent strategy to manage relationships between China and other states in a productive way. In doing so, our paper helps policymakers assess whether it is possible to accommodate China in certain policy domains or whether compellence or even confrontation is the only viable option going forward.

Authors

• Chengzhi Yin, Syracuse University

• Inhwan Oh, William & Mary