CIMSEC – In August 2020 China lifted the annual summer ban on its fleet’s fishing in the East China Sea (ECS). Amid speculation that China may use the opportunity to assert its claim over the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands, U.S. and Japanese naval forces conducted a joint exercise in the ECS to deter China. While much focus is paid to the Chinese claim of sovereignty over the Senkakus (China calls them Diaoyu), the dispute over the islands is partially nested within a larger dispute over the broader Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ)/Continental Shelf boundary dispute between the two countries. As such, the implications of the islands’ sovereignty over the broader maritime boundary dispute and the respective strategies of China and Japan warrant closer examination.

South China Morning Post – China’s Type 055 guided-missile destroyers have the potential to be refitted with “aircraft carrier killer” missiles but the weapons would have to be lighter and smaller than existing land-based technology, observers said.

Global Times – It has been nearly two years since the Xinhua News Agency revealed that China’s third aircraft carrier was under construction, and recent media reports suggest that work is progressing smoothly and the launch of the warship is near.

Forbes – If the PLAN’s carriers sail east into the Pacific or south to the Indian Ocean they may be vulnerable to air attack. This is because they lack airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft. But the new KJ-600 plane is about to change that.

Defense-Aerospace – China has for the second time launched a 58-tonne rocket from a civilian naval vessel, demonstrating a new capability and raising the specter that similar launchers could be covertly fitted to “merchant” ships. 

CIMSEC – Since the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) commissioned its second aircraft carrier, the possibility of utilizing these capital ships for coercive diplomacy is becoming more real. In China’s surrounding areas, Southeast Asia would be most suitable for “carrier diplomacy” regarding the proximity, the relatively weak defenses of the regional countries, and the major territorial disputes in the South China Sea. However, Southeast Asian countries, with their military modernizations and geopolitical circumstances, would not be merely hopeless either.

VOA – Experts who spoke to VOA say that Chinese illegal fishing is not only used by Beijing to stake maritime claims, the fleet’s massive overfishing helps drive food insecurity and ecological problems.

Chinese Maritime Studies Institute – In recent years, Chinese leaders have called on the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to carry out tasks related to naval diplomacy beyond maritime East Asia, in the “far seas.” Designed to directly support broader strategic and foreign policy objectives, the PLAN participates in a range of overtly political naval diplomatic activities, both ashore and at sea, from senior leader engagements to joint exercises with foreign navies. These activities have involved a catalogue of platforms, from surface combatants to hospital ships, and included Chinese naval personnel of all ranks. To date, these acts of naval diplomacy have been generally peaceful and cooperative in nature, owing primarily to the service’s limited power projection capabilities and China’s focus on more pressing security matters closer to home. However, in the future a more blue-water capable PLAN could serve more overtly coercive functions to defend and advance China’s rapidly growing overseas interests when operating abroad.

Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments – CSBA Nonresident Fellow Ross Babbage and colleagues argue for a new, scenario-based approach to defense and security planning in the Indo-Pacific. Drawing upon expert analysis of current conditions, three to four overarching scenarios for China should be considered as potential guideposts over the next 15 years.