Time for a harder defence line on China’s borders amid ‘challenges on almost every side’
- With more than 22,800km of borders with 14 countries, China has some of the world’s most complicated disputes with its neighbours
- PLA scholar says the situation in the Taiwan Strait is entering a new period of instability
China faces increasingly serious challenges at its land and sea borders on almost every side and must urgently reinforce its defences in these regions, according to a Chinese military researcher.
In a report published by Beijing-based think tank the Grandview Institution, Ouyang said the country was facing encroachment, secession and terrorism in some border areas.
“The struggle to safeguard national unity and territorial integrity, to fight against secession and terrorism in border areas, tends to be a long game, and will be even more so now with a new period of instability in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.
Ouyang said that to address the challenges, China could upgrade defence infrastructure along the coast, including its air defence identification systems and underwater warning facilities.
North Korea’s nuclear tests, the mass protests in Myanmar after the military coup in February and its long-term ethnic conflicts in the northern part of the country, as well as the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan, have heightened security threats for China, according to the report.