Chinese Foreign Investment and the Threat to INDOPACOM Theater Posture
Abstract
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was launched in 2013 with the public goals of interconnecting nations, strengthening economic ties, facilitating trade, improving economic development, and bringing people closer together. Upon deeper review, the evidence suggests that China also uses BRI as a "geostrategic weapon" to advance its national interests diplomatically, economically, and militarily. In the Western Pacific, China uses economic investment to degrade INDOPACOM's theater posture while improving its own. In the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Chinese state-owned companies invest heavily in hotels, casinos, and resorts adjacent to military bases to amass influence in the area. Subsequently, they use this influence to advocate for reducing U.S. military presence and constraining military operations. In addition, Chinese state-owned companies are gaining control over Darwin and other valuable seaports, amassing influence over strategic terrain. These are just two examples of China's theater-wide plan to use foreign investment to degrade INDOPACOM's theater posture and improve its own. In response, INDOPACOM must triage, identify, and counter those foreign investments that present unacceptable risks to its theater posture. To help this analysis, the author offers the decision tree in Figure 1. China will continue investing in strategic terrain until countered, and the United States must act urgently before China attains an unassailable position in the Western Pacific. To ignore China's actions is to accept a degraded theater posture, making any future in the Western Pacific war challenging to fight and impossible to win.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 09, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1210402
Entities
People
- Ryan Schiffner
Organizations
- Naval War College