China’s military diplomacy makes US alliances and intelligence even more important, congressional panel hears

PLA’s success using long-practised American tactics of port calls and arms sales is boosted by state-owned companies at its disposal, witnesses say
Washington could shore up relations with countries Beijing eagerly courts and draw on long-standing defence ties globally

US-China relations

Mark Magnierin New York

Published: 7:40am, 27 Jan 2023

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A more confident China has become increasingly adept at military diplomacy as it seeks to exploit American complacency, pursue strategic opportunities and nudge countries into its camp, making Washington’s alliances and intelligence collection on Beijing’s campaigns even more crucial, witnesses told a US congressional advisory commission.

The People’s Liberation Army is using many tactics the US has long employed to expand its soft power, including port calls, military-to-military contacts, arms sales, education programmes and global conferences, according to testimony heard on Thursday by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an independent agency established in 2000 to advise Congress.

Furthermore, Beijing has unique tools such as an ability to leverage state-owned companies to spy and support PLA interests, witnesses said.

“We are seeing the PLA engage more and more because they want to project global power,” said Melodie Ha, an analyst with the US Defence Department.

“We should think about our military diplomacy and what we can do, but at the same time also think about what we can do better than the PLA, which is interoperability and building partner capacity.”

Once largely internal in focus, the PLA has steadily cast its ambitions outwards. Yet as an arm of the Communist Party rather than of the Chinese government, its overseas military contacts tend to ebb, flow or completely halt in line with broader party objectives, witnesses said.

China benchmarks itself against the American military, but lacks Washington’s range of allies, partners and foreign bases. To counter Beijing’s strengthening military, the US should shore up its relations with countries China is keen to lure onside.

This does not mean trying to block every initiative the PLA makes, witnesses said, and countries that maintain relations with both Washington and Beijing could provide valuable information on China’s intentions, analysts said.

China’s military diplomacy, although rapidly developing, remains more symbolic than the long-standing, substantive defence ties Washington enjoys with foreign countries, witnesses said.

This is apparent in Beijing’s limited number of joint exercises, little or no “interoperability” – true integration with foreign military forces – or intelligence sharing.

Two notable exceptions are Russia and Pakistan, whose combat experience the PLA hopes to learn from. China’s last major war was fought in 1979 against Vietnam.

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Russia’s disappointing performance following its invasion of Ukraine in February last year has offered China lessons, negative or otherwise, on any potential conflict involving Taiwan.

These include Moscow’s early use of airborne troops, reported sleeper cells in Ukraine, coordination between air and sea forces and the complexity of amphibious operations, which Russia opted against in the Black Sea, an easier environment than the Taiwan Strait.

While some on both sides of the US-China divide have advocated severing bilateral military-to-military relations, these should be encouraged within circumscribed boundaries, witnesses said.

Collaborations could deter the PLA, engender a basic level of bilateral trust and help avoid or deflect inadvertent conflict of the kind that transpired in 2001 when a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided above Hainan Island.

“I don’t think Washington should get too upset if countries like Australia and Singapore are using symbolic military cooperation with the PLA to offset their much more substantive military cooperation with us,” said Phillip Saunders, Chinese military affairs director at the Washington-based National Defence University. “Rather than try to stop it, we should focus on limits on it.”

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Restrictions could mean limiting China’s knowledge of allied tactics and hardware and curbing its access to foreign ports and basing facilities, Saunders added.

Witnesses said China’s foreign arms sales included a vaster selection of more modern weapons sold to a wider customer base, although exports have remained steady at about 5 per cent of global sales – far less than that of the US, Russia or France.

“The PRC has shifted from a ‘supplier of last resort’, as described by researchers in the early 2000s, to an affordable choice for aircraft and ships,” said Meia Nouwens, a senior research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“When US or European military equipment is unaffordable or restricted, then PRC defence industry firms may be able to fill those niches.”

A key tool in China’s overseas military toolbox is its ability to leverage state-owned enterprises and quasi-private companies to serve the PLA and larger Communist Party objectives, analysts said. Chinese companies expanded their presence in Djibouti well before construction of a PLA support base there in 2016.

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Huawei Technologies Co has a considerable presence in many strategically located countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. And China reportedly sought unsuccessfully last year to build a secret military base in Khalifa port in the United Arab Emirates couched as a commercial facility.

Chinese companies can also assist in espionage, pass along lessons about American military operations, conduct sabotage, and, in the event of a conflict, get Chinese global commercial port operators like the China Ocean Shipping Company to support the PLA and slow roll US operations and logistics, defence analysts said.

“Chinese state firms like Cosco and China Merchants, which operate overseas ports, can provide Chinese naval vessels with more specialised technical repairs and maintenance that’s unavailable from other port operators,” said Jeffrey Becker, an Indo-Pacific research director with the Centre for Naval Analyses.

As the PLA becomes more active globally, American and Chinese forces can expect to encounter each other more often and in more diverse locations, Becker added. “If not planned and managed for carefully, these unexpected interactions could quickly lead to military confrontation and potentially escalate into a real crisis.”

Another manifestation of China’s growing military footprint abroad is the enhanced role of the Ministry of Public Security under President Xi Jinping.

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Reports have detailed cases of China setting up de facto police stations in France, Canada and the US without formal host-country approval. It also engages more often with Interpol, the international criminal police network, and cultivates official bilateral relations.

“The MPS have signed at least 51 agreements with 31 different partner governments between 1995 and 2020,” testified Jordan Link, an independent researcher formerly with the Centre for American Progress. “These agreements have the potential for negative downstream effects related to human rights.”

Analysts said they expected China to continue challenging the US around the world.

Increasingly, Beijing is enlisting the military to support its broader security and foreign policy goals, said Kristen Gunness, a senior researcher at the Rand Corporation and former Pentagon official. “Part of that is because the PLA actually has the capabilities to be able to do that now that they didn’t in the past.”

Additional reporting by Bochen Han in Washington