China’s Stealthy Challenge to US Military Power

The Asian Sun car shipping carrier (R) and and carrier Frisia (L) are pictured at the main port of Sri Lanka's Chinese-built Hambantota port on June 6, 2012. (Ishara S.KODIKARA/AFP/GettyImages)

A decade ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) introduced the Belt and Road Initiative to the world to promote countries’ economic development along the historic Silk Road.

This plan was viewed as Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature economic plan under his “Major Country Diplomacy” strategy. Lured by the disguise of economic development, more than 100 countries around the world joined the initiative. Over the past decade, many countries have incurred huge debts as a result, and the CCP has been able to engage in an implicit rivalry with the United States. However, the CCP’s ambition to dominate the world using its communist ideology through the Belt and Road Initiative has failed to materialize.

At the recently concluded Belt and Road Initiative summit, Mr. Xi said that he would inject another $100 billion into the initiative.

Mike Sun, a North American investment consultant, told The Epoch Times that the CCP is taking advantage of its economic development to challenge U.S. military power stealthily, and ultimately, the regime seeks to replace the United States in global dominance.

The Military Goal of the Belt and Road Initiative

At the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative is infrastructure. From ports and dams to highways, bridges, railroads, and gas pipelines, the CCP has invested heavily around the world. Over the past decade, the CCP has launched more than 3,000 projects in countries in the Belt and Road Initiative, with a total investment of nearly $1 trillion.

It is not difficult to notice the two main goals of the Belt and Road Initiative: first, to export China’s excess domestic capacity while gaining access to energy and mineral resources needed for China’s development; and second, to use the initiative as an attempt to promote the internationalization of the Chinese currency.

Mike Sun pointed to the military goals of the Belt and Road Initiative. He said: “The Belt and Road Initiative is bound to have military and geopolitical implications, especially in terms of the competition with the United States. One of the fundamental concepts of the Belt and Road Initiative is to positively avoid the United States and to go around it. In the Pacific Ocean, one or two island chains of the United States have formed a blockade on the CCP. The CCP does not have the military strength to confront the United States directly, so it is looking for ways to expand its geopolitical influence that can be connected to China by land.”

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After a decade of its implementation, many strategic ports around the world have been included by the CCP in the Belt and Road Initiative. According to 2018 data, the CCP has invested in constructing at least 35 ports worldwide over the past decade. These ports are located in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, and many of them are strategically located, including the Piraeus Port in Greece, the Gwadar Sea Port in Pakistan, the Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port in Myanmar, the Hambantota International Port in Sri Lanka, the Port of Vado Ligure in Italy, and the Laiki Deepwater Port in Nigeria, etc.

Statistics show that compared to the hundreds of U.S. military bases around the world, the CCP has purposely targeted the most critical and valuable ports, quietly laying out a military strategy to confront the United States.

Chen Liangzhi, an associate researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, wrote an article titled “From Commercial Ports to Military Ports: Strategic Pivot Points and China’s Projection of Military Power,” analyzing the real intentions of the CCP’s aggressive efforts to gain access to foreign ports.

Mr. Chen’s article pointed out that Hambantota International Port in Sri Lanka was the first one forced to be leased to China for 99 years after the port fell into a “debt trap.”

The Hambantota International Port is the most important shipping hub in the Indian Ocean. It is not only a crossroad on the shipping lanes connecting Asia and Europe, but also a maritime node connecting the Middle East and East Africa with South and Southeast Asia. The oil imported from the Middle East by Asian countries first passes through Hambantota and then goes eastward into the Strait of Malacca. Controlling the Hambantota International Port is tantamount to controlling the sea trade channel between Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

The CCP is also involved in the construction of the Gwadar Sea Port in Pakistan and the Kyaukphyu Deep Sea Port in Myanmar, which, together with the Hambantota International Port, form a triangle overlooking the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.

In addition, the CCP’s expansive control of the world’s ports through the Belt and Road Initiative also extends to countries that are key U.S. allies in the Middle East. In 2021, a batch of leaked top-secret documents from U.S. intelligence revealed that satellite imagery had revealed suspicious activity at the Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi, UAE, a key port for U.S. allies in the Middle East. The CCP was suspected of building military installations, which alarmed the White House, and relevant constructions were temporarily halted after repeated requests from the U.S. government.

A similar incident occurred at the Port of Haifa in Israel. In 2015, the Netanyahu government granted a 25-year lease to Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) for the Port of Haifa, which the U.S. Navy frequently visits, starting in 2021. The U.S. government sees this as a military threat and has said that if Israel does not take steps to regulate such Chinese investment, the U.S. Navy may stop docking at the port.

Mr. Chen said: “On the surface, the Belt and Road Initiative is purely an economic strategic plan, but the truth is that the CCP has a clear military agenda behind the Belt and Road Initiative. Over the past few years, the military bases that have surfaced along the Belt and Road Initiative have become more and more obvious.”

Comparing the CCP’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, Mr. Chen said that the military component of the Indo-Pacific Strategy is the dominant factor, which directly and clearly indicates its purpose. On the other hand, the “Belt and Road” strategy has gradually changed from being secretive to being explicit.

Communist China’s Goal of Global Dominance via the Belt and Road Initiative

According to Mike Sun, the real purpose of the Belt and Road Initiative is to promote to the world the CCP’s so-called “community of common destiny for mankind” values, which is essentially the so-called “philosophy” of communism. After Xi Jinping came to power in China, he basically rebranded communism as a “community of common destiny.”

The CCP has also made it clear that the Belt and Road Initiative and the “community of common destiny” are intertwined in a way that they support and enhance each other. On Oct. 10, the State Council of the CCP released a white paper saying that the Belt and Road Initiative is a major building block of the “community of common destiny.”

Yuan Hongbing, a Chinese scholar who had close contact with Mr. Xi and other senior members of the CCP, has said that Mr. Xi inherited the fundamentalism of Mao Zedong and that he had maintained the goal of world domination by communism in his early years. Mr. Yuan recalled that Mr. Xi told him that it would take at least 4 billion Chinese to “run the world” if communism were to be realized globally.

The Belt and Road Initiative in Its Final Days

As the CCP expands its geopolitical influence through the Belt and Road “debt trap,” the United States is launching strategies to counter it. During the G20 Summit this year, the United States facilitated a trilateral India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) infrastructure project to counterbalance the Belt and Road Initiative.

The IMEC consists of two separate corridors: the Eastern Corridor connecting India to the Arabian Gulf, and the Northern Corridor connecting the Arabian Gulf to Europe. According to a European Commission document, in addition to the railroad line, the IMEC corridor includes an electric transmission line, a hydrogen pipeline, and a high-speed digital subscriber line.

In addition, some of the IMEC signatories are also members of the Belt and Road Initiative, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Although the IMEC corridor is a latecomer, the CCP’s ambition to export its ideology and achieve global dominance is unlikely to be realized. Independent commentator Zhuge Mingyang told The Epoch Times that the CCP’s hosting of the recent Belt and Road Initiative summit appears to be a grand gesture, but in reality, it is hitting the end of the road.

Mr. Zhuge said, “The three-year pandemic, along with China’s imminent economic crisis, has left the Chinese regime unable to take care of itself, and the Belt and Road Initiative is nothing more than empty promises now. Xi Jinping is trying to gather more supporters by injecting more money into the initiative, but no country is really going to engage with the CCP. Every country has its own agenda. Even countries like North Korea, Russia, and Iran, are simply using each other for their own benefit. With the global economic downturn, it would be better if the Belt and Road Initiative could be brought to an end.”

“In addition, the West is getting a clearer understanding of the nature of the Chinese regime, and there is no more room for the CCP to market its communist ideology,” he said.