The Evolution Of Chinese Maritime Strategy In The Process Of World History

This article discusses China’s maritime strategy evolution process under the background of the world history.Historically, the development of China’s maritime strategy has gone through five stages.In the age of exploretion, when Western European countries were vigorously developing the maritime undertaking, China hesitated to develop towards the ocean. Lingering in the policy of open sea or restriction, China lost its original superiority of maritime power. China’s marine civilization was at a strategic disadvantage when confronted with terrestrial civilization. Since ancient times, Western countries’ sense of competition for maritime hegemony was very clear. From the coastal countries of Mediterranean Sea competing for maritime overlord at the Mediterranean Sea times to the coastal countries of Western European fighting it out in the ocean after the Geographical Great Discovery, the coastal countries of Western European relied heavily upon ocean all the while. As one of the centers of ancient civilization, though a typical coastal country, China focused on the agricultural civilization as continental country in its development process all along. Ancient China once developed maritime activities. It conducted cross-sea exchange with Japan, Southeast Asian countries, etc, created a maritime Silk Road, had the world’s handful of powerful foreign trade ports and set up tariff system, carried out great voyages before Western European countries about several decades. But in final analysis, these maritime activities were not the focus of national development.After the New Route discovery, using the commercial colonial and missionary as pioneer, backed by ship, gun and military might, the Western European countries developed towards the east and west hemispheres one after another and invaded China. Contrast with Western countries, China began to adopt close-door policy and pose as world’s great power of continental. So it was isolated from the development of outside world. When Western colonialists knocked off gateway of China and obtained benefits in the Opium War, the invasion from the sea had become the beginning of the nightmare of modern China. Through launching wars and signing unequal treaties, Western colonialists snatched sovereignty over the waters of China. The Qing government was forced to re-emphasis on maritime affairs, and began to take modern ocean pragmatic strategy, like building modern navy, developing modern maritime industry, etc. China was facing the dilemma:Which was more important? Ocean or land?When the world running into a sea power era, major capitalism countries obtained primitive accumulation of capital through overseas expansion. There give birth to a new round of battle for world sea power. Carrying out naval arms race and taking foreign aggression were the main content of sea power competition. During the two world wars, naval warfare became the main form of world war. The Navy’s force strength became the key factor to the success of overseas aggression. At the same time, because of the further acquaintance of maritime rights, the sea power struggle at this time was no longer restricted to competition for command of the sea but extends to fighting for the territorial waters and continental shelf resources. At this time, China suffered from political instability, national poverty and weakness, the Republic of China resisted the invasion of imperialist maritime countries through its weak naval power. China’s maritime strategy went into the bottom.There were two kinds of situation in the early postwar period. The confrontation between the U.S and the Soviet Union in the pacific was the first one, which aroused the competition of navy in the whole Asia-Pacific region. Furthermore, the island chain strategy by U.S leads to a expanding of the competition. Contesting the ocean resources was the other. Benefit of the technology, ocean resources played more important role in the national development, and the competition of ocean resources carried out fiercely. Although china placed the revitalization of maritime strategy on the agenda in the early period of PRC, china had to focus on defense on naval strategy because of the crisis from northern land and eastern-southern ocean.International marine situation changes have taken place since the 80s of the 20th century. Legalization of marine affairs and exploitation of ocean resources played core role in the maritime strategy. After the UNCLOS, legitimize the national behaviors in the sea had been playing important role in the world. Response to this, maritime countries set the maritime strategy one after another, the PRC was in the same way. After finishing the necessary construction of coastal defense, the PRC had been instituting the Reform and Opening-up policy. A new maritime strategy of legalization and international cooperation has being carried out to meet the maritime needs of it in the new age.China’s maritime strategy has experienced four stages, which can be draw as a wave of wandering, restore, low off and reset. However, before the 80s of the 20th,every stage of Chinese maritime stratgy fell behind the world path.looking back the history,the author argued the importance of maritime strategy in PRC,the core role of navy in the grand strategy.