In an article dated 26 September 2012 in The Diplomat, an online international affairs magazine for the Asian Pacific Region, Toshi Yoshihara, John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific
Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, presents his views of China's sophisticated maritime strategies, a flexible and calibrated combination of non-military and military power, "that will be more effective and equally
difficult to counter". 

"While such strategies do not, yet, portend the
fundamental reordering of maritime Southeast Asia, they will likely
yield incremental dividends that advance China's larger aims at sea".

His article was adapted from his testimony before the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs delivered on September 12, 2012. Click here

Dr Yoshihara advances the argument that China's non-naval power projection in the East and South China Seas is predicated upon the following components –

(a) mobile onshore anti-ship missile assets along China's coastline which can be deployed in support of naval manoevres in the region's theatres;

(b) non-combat civilian vessels of the China Maritime Surveillance (CMS) agency, which serves to keep up China's territorial claims "at a low simmer". This weakens the rationale of any foreign military initiative, is flexible enough to be turned up or down to test an opponent's resolve, and may over time cause a strategic fatigue in the opponent's resistance;

(c) buying time for the on-going rapid progess in building up a credible, modern and comprehensive blue-water navy.

Against this perceived Chinese naval power projection strategy, Dr Yoshihara proposes that the United States should –

(a) continue to beef up the military capabilities of China's negibours;

(b) build up a shared regional military surveillance system; and

(c) instal a rapid-response U.S. naval force with anti-ship missile capabiliites that can be deployed quickly in response to any military situation in these waters.

Regardless of the effectiveness of Dr Yoshihara's suggested counter-measures, what has been left unsaid in his assessment is the fact that vitually all of China's neigbours in these waters, including Japan, have China as the centre of a regional production and supply chain, their largest trading partner, a vital export market, an engine of their economic growth and job creation and increasingly for some, a source of foreign investment. So none can afford making China an implacable enemy. Nevertheless, they all welcome the American Pivot as a military insurance, if not a free ride, in hedging against a powerful China.

Dr Yoshihara's insightful analysis in fact illustrates how China is successfully applying the basic tenet of Sun Tzu's ancient Art of War – that winning a war does not always have to involve fighting. Perhaps that's why the article in The Diplomat has the heading "War By Other Means – China’s Political Uses of Seapower"