- China has a long naval past
On the 71st anniversary of the establishment of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), a befitting gift was presented in the shape of the launch of its second Type 075 (Yushen)-class landing helicopter dock (LHD) amphibious assault ship. The ceremony took place at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai on 22 April.
The Type 075 is about 235 m long, with a 36 m wide flight deck and an estimated displacement of about 35,000 tonnes, making it smaller than the US Navy’s 45,000 tonne America-class landing helicopter assault (LHA) vessels.
The maritime history of China dates back thousands of years, with archives existing since the late Spring and Autumn Period (722 BC — 481 BC) about the ancient maritime power of China and the various ship types used in war. China was the leading maritime power in the years 1405-1433, when Chinese shipbuilders began to build massive oceangoing junks. In modern times, the current People’s Republic of China (Mainland China) continues to maintain a standing navy with the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written by a Greek, describes trade in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, including the harbours of Sri Lanka and the west coast of India, the customs regime imposed by Rome in the Red Sea, and the difficult possibility of reaching China by sea (China had been known to Greeks since the 105th BC, but the land route was better known). It also describes the flourishing trade through Adulis, the Red Sea port of the Aksumite civilization in Ethiopia, which flourished 101st-7th BC. In the year 107 BC, about 200,000 Persians, Arabs, Indians, Malays, and other foreigners lived in Guangzhou as traders, artisans and metalworkers.
Maintaining regional stability and world peace needs not only the development of China’s military might, but also increased cooperation with other countries. It is imperative that China continues to cooperate with all peace-loving countries and forces to work together for regional stability and world peace
In the year 616, the maternal uncle of the prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), Abu Waqqas, joined a trading voyage from Ethiopia to Guangzhou. He then returned to Arabia and came back to Guangzhou 21 years later with a copy of the Koran. He founded the Mosque of Remembrance, near the Kwang Ta (Smooth Minaret) built by the Arabs as a lighthouse. His tomb is in the Muslim cemetery in Guangzhou. The year 748 marks when a Chinese monk Jian Zhen (Jianzhou, of Daming monastery in Yangzhou), failed in his fifth attempt to sail to Japan, and drifted to Guangzhou where according to his narrative, ‘many big ships came from Borneo, Persia, Qunglun [Indonesia/Java]… with… spices, pearls and jade piled up mountain high’. The largest ship looked like a mansion, with sails many zhangs high. [1 zhang = 3.11 meters.]
More light on China’s maritime history is shed by Joseph Needham’s Science & Civilization in China, quoted earlier. He reports that in the year 758, Arabs looted and burned Guangzhou. The emperor then closed Guangzhou to foreigners for 50 years.
During the late 8th and early 9th centuries, China had very large river and canal boats, estimated at 700 tons. ‘The crews of these ships lived on board; they were born, married and died there. The ships had lanes (between the dwellings), and even gardens. Each one had several hundred sailors… South to Chiangsi and north to Huainan they made one journey in each direction every year, with great profit…. The sea-going junks (hai-po) are foreign ships. Every year they come to Canton and An-i. Those from Ceylon are the largest…When these ships go to sea; they take with them white pigeons, so that in case of shipwreck the birds can return with messages.’
From the ninth century onwards, Chinese merchant ships sailing from Guangzhou were calling regularly at Sufala on the east African coast, to cut out Arab middlemen. In 878, Chinese rebel forces under Huang Chao, who sacked Guangzhou, killed an estimated 120,000 Jews, Christians, Muslims and other foreigners, in addition to local residents. Tang dynasty [618-907] Arab merchant Shulama praised the seaworthiness of large Chinese-built ships but noted that the draft was too deep to enter the Euphrates, necessitating small boats to land passengers and cargo. Ships crossing the Indian Ocean were about 20 zhang long and could carry 600-700 passengers.
In 1154, Al-Idrisi, a Moroccan geographer, published his Geography, which contained a world map, and described Chinese merchant ships carrying iron, swords, leather, silk, velvet and other textiles to Aden, the Indus and Euphrates. He commented that Quanzhou’s silk was unparalleled, and Hangzhou renowned for both glassware and silk.
In the period 1163-1190, during the reign of Xiaozong, the southern Song took to seaborne trade, previously dominated by Arabs and others. Chinese ships sailed east to Korea and Japan, and west to India, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. China imported raw materials and luxuries (rare woods, precious metals, gems, spices and ivory), and exported manufactured goods (silk and other cloths, ceramics, lacquerware, copper cash, dyes, books and stationery).
Although numerous naval battles took place before the 12th century, such as the large-scale Three Kingdoms Battle of Chibi in 208, it was during the Song Dynasty (960–1279) that the Chinese established a permanent, standing navy in 1132. At its height by the late 12th century there were 20 squadrons of some 52,000 marines, with the admiral’s headquarters based at Dinghai, while the main base remained closer to modern Shanghai. The establishment of the permanent navy during the Song period came out of the need to defend against the Jurchens, who had overrun the northern half of China, and to escort merchant fleets entering the South-East Pacific and Indian Oceana on long trade missions abroad. However, considering China was a country long menaced by land-based nomadic tribes such as the Xiongnu, Göktürks, Mongols and so on, the navy was always seen as an adjunct rather than an important military force. By the 15–16th centuries China’s canal system and internal economy were sufficiently developed to nullify the need for the Pacific fleet, which was scuttled when conservative Confuciusanists gained power in the court and began the policy of inward perfection. With the Opium Wars, which shook up the generals of the Qing Dynasty, naval power was once again attached greater importance.
When the British fleet encountered the Chinese during the first Opium War, their officers noted the appearance of paddle-wheel boats among the Chinese fleet, which they took for a copy of the Western design. Paddle-wheel boats were actually developed by the Chinese independently in the 5th–6th centuries, only a century after their first surviving mention in Roman sources, though that method of propulsion had been abandoned for many centuries and only recently reintroduced before the war. Numerous other innovations were present in Chinese vessels during the Middle Ages that had not yet been adopted by the Western and Islamic worlds, some of which were documented by Marco Polo but which did not enter into other navies until the 18th century, when the British successfully incorporated them into ship designs. For example, medieval Chinese hulls were split into bulkhead sections so that a hull rupture only flooded a fraction of the ship and did not necessarily sink it.
A significant naval battle was the Battle of Lake Poyang from 30 August to 4 October 1363, a battle which cemented the success of Zhu Yuanzhang in founding the Ming Dynasty. However, the Chinese fleet shrank tremendously after its military/tributary/exploratory functions in the early 15th century were deemed too expensive and it became primarily a police force on routes like the Grand Canals. Ships like the juggernauts of the Muslim Chinese Admiral Zheng He’s “Treasure Fleet,” which dwarfed the largest Portuguese ships of the era by several times, were discontinued, and the junk became the predominant Chinese vessel until the country’s relatively recent (in terms of Chinese sailing history) naval revival.
With growing power, there is a tendency for muscle flexing. China has been treading carefully to portray that it has no hegemonic designs. So far it has asserted that it will never pursue a “gunboat policy” and bully weaker countries. In the face of a rising China in economic, political, cultural and military strength, it is inevitable that some countries will be suspicious about and misunderstand China’s intentions. China must not only continue to make clear its strategies and policies, it must also take practical actions to convince the world that with the development of China’s military strength, especially the strengthening of its overseas projection capability, it will enhance its role as a defender of regional stability and world peace.
In dealing with the territorial and maritime rights disputes with some neighbouring countries, China has remained committed to solving the problems through diplomatic channels and negotiations and opposes the use of force or threat of force.
A study of China’s survival instincts indicates that it will resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and national dignity. Its leaders assert that they stand for peace but are not afraid of any threats or intimidation. When China has a more balanced and powerful navy, the regional situation will be more stable as various forces that threaten regional peace will no longer dare to act rashly. China’s military forces, especially its powerful naval forces, can provide the international community more “public security products” that are enough to stop the impulse of any country to attempt military adventures. Maintaining regional stability and world peace needs not only the development of China’s military might, but also increased cooperation with other countries. It is imperative that China continues to cooperate with all peace-loving countries and forces to work together for regional stability and world peace.
