Dr. Dingli Shen, a scholar of security studies and Chinese and U.S. foreign policies at Fudan University, had an interesting op-ed yesterday that merits attention.
Dr. Dingli Shen[/caption]
According to Shen, China should consider developing “overseas military bases,” which he says people define in today’s context as “supply bases for the navy escorting the ships cruising in the Gulf of Aden and Somalia.” Shen lists four main interests that justify overseas bases: “the protection of the people and fortunes overseas; the guarantee of smooth trading; the prevention of the overseas intervention which harms the unity of the country and the defense against foreign invasion.”
The lay reader should be clear that the United States does not look favorably on China’s developing the ability to guarantee its own smooth trading; we like having the leverage to determine, ultimately,whether we will allow foreign countries to trade. The reader should also be aware that the third interest Shen lists is a diplomatic phrasing of “being able to prevent U.S. intervention in Taiwan,” perhaps in addition to some much smaller concerns about Tibet. The Chinese do not need to do anything to pursue the fourth listed interest, preventing foreign invasion of China. So what’s left is protecting Chinese people and money overseas; wresting control of China’s sea lines of communication from the United States; and preventing U.S. intervention in ways that would “harm the unity of the country.”