为全球化中国打造蓝水海军

如果只是为了解决台湾和南海问题，中国海军并不需要这么多舰艇。由于全球贸易约90%是通过海路运输的，而中国是世界上最大的贸易国和最大的原油进口国，所以国际海上通道安全对中国来说关乎命脉。一个全球化的中国必须拥有自己的蓝水海军。

这就是为什么自2008年12月以来，中国一直派遣海军编队在非洲之角附近水域巡逻。在中国海军编队护送的商船中，几乎有一半是外国船只，说明中国在保护自身利益的同时，尽量兼顾国际责任。在亚丁湾，中国一直在与北约、欧盟和美国领导的多国海上力量并肩合作。

中国的目标是在2049年庆祝中华人民共和国成立100周年时建成一支世界一流的军队，这是完全可能的，因为今天的解放军已被许多人视为仅次于美军，而距离目标还有20多年的时间。问题在于，中国会如何使用这支有朝一日可与美国并驾齐驱的军事力量？毋庸讳言，一支更强大的中国人民解放军将更有能力捍卫中国主权。

中国海军医疗船“和平方舟”号。来源：中新社

但中国不像美国，没有传教士般的干预他国内政或管控世界的狂热。尽管有猜测中国将建立“珍珠链”——横跨印度洋的一系列海外军事基地，但迄今为止，中国只于2017年在吉布提建立了一个后勤保障基地。可以说，中国没有兴趣重蹈美国由于帝国扩张致使衰落的老路。

一言蔽之，人们应该如何看待中国海军？

自2010年以来，中国海军医疗船“和平方舟”号巡游世界，已为数十万人提供了医疗服务。这与600年前郑和下西洋的做法步调一致，当时郑和的无敌舰队引发更多的是钦佩，而非望而生畏。

如果说中国最大的驱逐舰“南昌”号代表了中国的硬实力，那么“和平方舟”则传递了另一面信息：大国的实力恰恰在于谦逊。

翻译：中国论坛 蒋绍澄

校译：中国论坛 韩桦

What's driving China's push to build up its naval power

What best represents China's military strength? The answer: its navy.

At the end of last year, the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy had 360 battle ships, surpassing the United States Navy's 297 vessels. And that gap is expected to widen in the coming years by most estimates.

To paraphrase former Czech president Vaclav Havel, China's naval build-up has happened so rapidly that the world has not had time to be astonished. In the 1974 Battle of the Paracel Islands between the naval forces of China and South Vietnam, the four Chinese warships combined were dwarfed in size by the largest ship of the South Vietnamese navy.

Unlike the PLA Army, which fought to establish the People's Republic of China, and the PLA Air Force, which fought in the Korean War, the least war-tested PLA Navy now stands at the forefront, simply because today, all threats to China come from the sea.

Be it in the Taiwan Strait or in the South China Sea, the PLA Navy has to prepare for possible conflict with the US Navy. US President Joe Biden has said that US rivalry with China will take the form of "extreme competition" rather than conflict; the problem is, if competition is already extreme, it is probably like tiptoeing on a tightrope that is only one step away from conflict.

The US is said to maintain a policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan. But since the Trump administration, the US government has been salami-slicing away that ambiguity in diverse ways, including enhancing exchanges with Taipei, sending warships to sail provocatively through the Taiwan Strait and deploying its servicemen in Taiwan to help with military training.

It is not surprising then that Beijing is compelled to increase pressure on the island by sending more military aircraft to fly near Taiwan. In a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Oct 31, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned the US not to pursue "a fake One China policy".

Should conflict erupt in the Taiwan Strait, China cannot afford to lose in a war defending its sovereignty. And it probably won't.。

With Taiwan just 160km away from the mainland, the US military will find itself in an asymmetrical disadvantage from the start. It is questionable that its Asian allies will readily allow Americans to use their military bases to turn their homelands into battlefields.。

In the South China Sea, the stronger the PLA Navy becomes, the less likely it will bear with American provocations at China's doorstep on a regular basis.

Unlike in the Cold War where there were clearly defined spheres of influence which allowed the two superpowers to deconflict, there are no buffer zones between the two navies in the South China Sea. Accidents and close calls have occurred, including a deadly collision of two military aircraft in 2001.

The so-called Hainan incident - which led to the death of a Chinese pilot and the detention of the crew of the American reconnaissance plane on the island - was resolved peacefully only after the US ambassador sent a letter in which he said "very sorry" two times.

The situation is far different now. The mutual distrust and lack of strategic consensus between Beijing and Washington leave hardly any room for "common- sense guardrails", in the words of President Biden during his recent virtual meeting with China's President Xi Jinping. De-escalation in a similar crisis will be far more challenging than in the past. The few confidence-building measures in place are only tactical arrangements which can hardly resolve strategic distrust.