Once the site of a Taoist shrine, the clearing had long since been abandoned. An intact limestone bench remained, a solid perch on which Liu came to rest. His breathing slowly steadied as a magnificent vista revealed itself before him.
The sparkling blue waters of the South China Sea stretched to the horizon. On the coast sat the city of Yulin. What only ten years before had been a sleepy fishing village was now a bustling community of over ten thousand souls. The region’s primary employer was the new naval base that Liu had helped establish. Its main docks were clearly visible, and Liu proudly studied the half dozen ships currently moored there.
Four of these vessels were guided-missile patrol boats. Each of these 185-foot, 530-ton, thirty-eight-knot combatants had just been fitted out with four MM 40 Exocet Block 2 antiship missiles; a 30mm Goalkeeper self-contained close-in weapons system; a sextuple Sudral launch system for Mistral infrared-homing surface-to-air missiles, and a dual-purpose 75mm gun mount.
A Ling-class marine salvage ship was berthed beside the patrol boats.
This unique, 255-foot-long vessel was designed to support diver operations to a depth of 850 feet, and could lift submerged objects weighing up to 300 tons from a depth of 800 feet. A massive crane was mounted aft of the bridge, where a group of sailors could be seen preparing the ship to get underway.
Yet the warship that caught Liu’s complete attention was berthed immediately forward of the salvage ship — the Zhanjiang. This sleek, heavily armed destroyer was the first of two Project 053HT destroyers that were launched from Shanghai in February 1993.
A thin stream of white smoke rose from the Zhanjiang’s single amidship stack. At a length of 492 feet, the 5,300ton ship was fitted with a mix of Chinese-developed and European-supplied combat systems. Much like the varied mix of armaments on the four patrol boats, the destroyer was a hybrid, combining the best of the East and the West.
Liu had lobbied strongly to get his obdurate comrades in naval development to expend hard currency and buy these systems. Continued double-digit economic growth helped ease their conservative fears, and the Zhanjiang was proof they had made the proper choice.
The sharp cry of the hawk diverted Liu’s glance back to the southern horizon, where the sparkling waters of the South China Sea beckoned. It was in those open seas that China’s destiny awaited.
For over three decades Liu had been a tireless proponent of an expanded fleet. His cautious transformation of the navy from a meager, coastal-enforcement force to a service with worldwide blue-water capabilities took many frustrating years to initiate, and Liu was well aware that the benefits were already apparent.
In March 1988, a PLA Navy frigate sank three Vietnamese warships off the distant Spratly Island group. For the first time ever, PRC warships had made port visits to Honolulu, Vladivostok, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. A pair of ships provided full-time communications and telemetry support for the PRC’s Pacific missile test range, while a PLA Navy icebreaker supported China’s two research stations in far-off Antarctica.
Liu was particularly pleased with the advancements in their all-important submarine fleet. The modern, nuclear powered submarine was a force multiplier that couldn’t be ignored. When Capt. Lee Shao-chi and his Han-class sub successfully penetrated America’s Kitty Hawk carrier battle group off the coast of Taiwan in October 1994, the PLA Navy showed the world that foreign fleets could no longer patrol Chinese waters without suffering the consequences.
Establishing control of the waters well away from China’s coastline became an accepted doctrine as a result of the Persian Gulf war. At this time, sea-launched cruise missiles, aircraft-carrier battle groups, and other over-the-horizon weapons systems demonstrated the vital need to extend the PRC’s area of influence as far out to sea as possible.
As Liu guided the navy’s difficult transformation from coastal defense (jinhai fangyu), to offshore defense (jin yang fangyu) to full blue-water yuan yang haijuri) operations, he envisioned a series of protective island barriers. The first segment of the Pacific that the PLA Navy had to be capable of patrolling extended from the Kuriles to Japan, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, the Philippines, and the Greater Sundas. A second barrier reached all the way out to the Bonins, the Marianas, Guam, and the Carolines. Only when these vast seas were protected by China’s sphere of influence could the PRC control its own destiny.
As the mainland’s natural resources continued to be rapidly depleted, the world’s most populous nation was facing uncertain times ahead. In 1993 China became a net importer of oil for the first time. And within a few years, the PRC would be needing over seven million barrels of oil a day to satisfy its industrial needs — the same amount that the gluttonous Americans currently imported. With precious hard currency already being stretched thin to import food and to purchase badly needed Western technology, where was this oil to come from? Liu knew that the answer to this question lay beneath the waters of the sea he currently faced.
Approximately one thousand kilometers due south of Hainan Island, in a portion of the South China Sea surrounded by the Philippines to the east, Vietnam to the west, and Malaysia and Brunei to the south, lay the Spratly Islands. Inconsequential as to landmass, the Spratlys’ wealth lay submerged beneath their shallow shoals, where oil fields easily rivaling those of the Persian Gulf were located. Claimed by each of the aforementioned nations, as well as the People’s Republic of China, the Spratlys were without doubt the most important island chain in all of Asia. For whoever controlled their resources, controlled the destiny of the earth in the twenty-first century.
Liu had no doubt that China could prevail in this struggle — the alternative was unthinkable. The PRC had made control of the Spratlys a foreign-policy priority.
Just as the return of Hong Kong was bringing badly needed financial expertise to the motherland, control of the Spratly oil fields would seal China’s ascendence as the world’s mightiest nation. With the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, it was time for a new hierarchy of nations. The once all-powerful Japanese economy was showing signs of serious strain, while the European community remained weakened by a seemingly endless series of petty squabbles.
This left the United States as China’s sole competitor. There could be no ignoring the fact that the awesome American military machine had seen its best days. Huge budget deficits, and a weakening of the wills of its citizens, were forcing the Pentagon to cut large chunks out of its defense appropriations. Even the mighty U. S. Navy was feeling the crunch, as a Cold War fleet of more than 500 warships had been cut to nearly half that number.
The timing was thus ideal for the PRC to expand its territorial ambitions in order to incorporate the natural resources needed to feed its future growth. Yet China’s current top leadership — a group of untried young fools who’d risen to power following the death of Deng Xiaoping-were failing to act on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Try as he could to awaken them to this fact, Liu was met with a frustratingly polite “not interested.” Instead, politicians such as Li Chen, their current president, had decided on a dangerous course of appeasement with the West. This could bring only tragedy, and Liu cursed their inexperienced president’s lack of courage and foresight.
Li Chen’s rash decision to join the G-7 leaders aboard the luxury ocean liner QE2 signaled the true degree of his ignorance. But could Liu expect any better from one who had lived a pampered life, never knowing the Great Leader, or the immense sacrifices they had made to free China from centuries of slavery?