China and Maritime Transformation: History, Strategy and Policy Implications

This paper seeks to place China's ongoing maritime transformation in a larger context, and thereby clarify the strategic implications of its pursuit of maritime capabilities. It argues that, given their amphibious nature, rimland powers are bound to encounter more challenges in the pursuit of maritime transformation, and more importantly, such pursuits easily backfire and cause undesirable ramifications. This paper examines the underlying mechanism which led to the failed maritime transformation of rimland powers in modern history. Then, based on the strategic lessons from modern history, it examines the strategic challenges concomitant with China's pursuit of maritime capabilities, and contends that, if China hopes to escape similar fate, it has to pay serious attention to three strategic issues.