Just a cursory look at Chinese naval history reveals that it is by no means its strongest hand. The Qing Fleet, described by the press at the time as the finest navy in the region was easily routed and then scuttled by the Japanese. Kubliai’s two attempts at mustering the Chinese nation to invade Japan were devastated by divine winds and Zheng He, who was at best a littoral explorer of far away places that had already been discovered by the existing residents long before he arrived.
Zheng He may arguably be China’s greatest mariner but whatever he had going, by way of naval prowess, was soon shutdown by the characteristically xenophobic and thoroughly land-based thinking of the ruling Chinese elites. In its claimed 5000 years of history China has consistently under-performed when it comes to floating a credible navy. This is not to say that this is a problem, China as a vast country with a huge population has consistently and rightfully concentrated upon its heartland and not the sea. Even past Chinese Emperors have proudly boasted that no island has ever become part of the Chinese core.
Oddly then, as China steps into the limelight as a global player in the 21st century it seems to be more and more determined to gamble its fortunes on the sea, something it has a patchy historical record in.
Yes, I know the reasoning. China can’t leave its “security” to others, namely the US navy, so it is forced to expand into this theatre to protect its interests whether it wants to or not. But from an outsider looking in, it seems that China is on a fast track to yet another naval folly.
Below are three compounding reasons why China will not be able to float a credible navy that can meet the high demands of war at sea.
1) Broken drill bits
I live in China and every time I want to do some home repairs I always buy about 3 or 4 of the same drill bits and about double the amount of screws I will need. Why? Because they break, bend or thread. The quality is poor and rather than buy expensive Japanese drill heads I just buy a fistful of poorly made Chinese ones because it’s easier and over the years my expectations have slowly altered downwards. When I ran a guesthouse in China, we went through three water pumps to keep the water pressure up because they were not only NOT built to last, they weren’t even built to work for more than a few days. This chronic quality control is so pervasive in China that it actually alters one’s expectations to the point of it being absolutely normal. You don’t actually expect things to work, but if they do then it’s a bonus. For the average person growing up in China who has never known anything different, having something that did work, or could work if you change a part is entirely acceptable. The bar is so ridiculously low that the expectation of quality is that so long as no one complains, its ok. Until someone complains, it doesn’t need fixing, mending or altering.
So what has this got to do with a navy?
The essence of naval warfare is impeccable standards and high quality. There’s only one thing that defines a world-class navy and that is high standards. Everything else is secondary to standards. Whether in peacetime or wartime, standards have to be religiously tended to. The measure of a navy’s ability to fight are the standards it keeps during peacetime. In a China where everything is vulnerable to pervasive low standards, is it reasonable to assume that the PLA navy is immune to this old habit. Are we really to believe that an introverted Chinese navy, which has little to no contact with the outside world has been able to escape the low-standards trap that has consumed all of China? My guess is that when push comes to shove the Chinese navy will unravel from the inside out because,
- of this thing that keeps breaking
- that thing that hasn’t been maintained
- those things that no one knows how to work properly
- this bit that needs a new part
- that thing that only works when this works
- and the twisty thing that never really worked at all
One may cite that there are a number of instances where China has exceedingly high standards – the high-speed rail links that will soon crisscross the country being one. But even these projects are dogged by wild rumours of cost cutting and standard shaving. The persistent rumour is that that the lines were built much too quickly at the expense of the standards usually required. It remains to be seen whether this is the case or not, but I will add that these projects have been managed and coached by outside companies which obviously the PLA navy has no experience with.
As China hasn’t floated a modern navy for over one hundred years a salient question would be who are the Chinese navy learning the impeccably high standards and fleet strategies from? The defunct Russian navy? A navy with practically no battle experience that went bankrupt trying to counter a US navy? Who are their mentors?
2. The best new kit money can buy
This seems counter intuitive, surely the navy with the best kit will win. In fact it really isn’t as simple as this. Firstly, it is clear that PLA navy is investing alot in new kit, so one could argue that they are escaping the standards trap in my first argument but this isn’t the case. Lots of new kit comes with its own problems that only compound the standards trap. To demonstrate the problem, please consider two other analogies.
I was once traveling in China and we arrived at a very plush hotel. Everything was immaculate and stunning. When we walked into the bathroom I was surprised to see that we had one of those space-aged looking shower capsules with a thousand different hose settings and wash cycles. Feeling grubby, I eagerly stripped off and jumped into the capsule. After fiddling with the settings the contraption began to whir and whine and after about two minutes a feeble trickle of water started to pathetically spew out of a few hoses, unfortunately not enough water to wash with. Having reasoned that the capsule must be broken I contacted the house keeping. To my surprise, their matter-of-fact reaction was that there wasn’t enough water pressure to work the jets. Thinking it must be something to do with my room I asked to move to a room that did have water pressure. Which of course was impossible, they informed me that all the rooms had space-aged shower capsules but no rooms had the water pressure to use them. The amazing thing about the story is that for the hotel staff this wasn’t a problem. They couldn’t make the mental leap that having the shower capsules but not having the water pressure to use them was pointless. In their minds the two things were entirely separate and expecting both of them at the same time was asking too much. The shower capsules meant that the hotel could describe itself as luxurious, whether they worked or not was irrelevant. Another shower story that will help to illustrate the point was when I was building my guesthouse in China we designed four expensive power-showers. Once they were complete the builders proudly demonstrated a shower working for me and looked pleased with the powerful torrent of water that gushed out. Immediately I ran into the other three rooms and switched on the other showers full blast. Lo and behold the water pressure dropped to the point that each shower just dribbled out water. The builders quickly pointed out the error of my ways. The water pressure dropped because I had all four running at the same time. Once they switched off the other showers they beamed at me with confidence. They just couldn’t get the point that all four showers needed to work simultaneously for it to be considered a success.
Again, so what as this got to do with the navy?
Well the problem is connectivity. Connecting high quality to low quality equals low quality. In both examples the high-end showers were being served by low end pumps and not only did this effect the service provided, the problem couldn’t even be seen by the workers who’s expectations were so low to begin with. So, in regards to the navy, it is my guess that there will be a pervasive connectivity problem where high-end weapons are linked up to low-end products some where in the chain, that will ultimately lead to them being inoperable in significant numbers. So, in reality, a ship may well be able to get one or two sophisticated weapons off either in a highly calibrated exercise or at the beginning of hostilities, but will it have the reliability and connectivity to fire off multiple systems at multiple targets over consecutive days, weeks or months at sea? I sincerely doubt it.
Is it too far a leap to go from power-showers to naval warships? Some might think so, but I disagree. I personally think that if it were ever possible to independently audit the PLA, which of cause it could never be, one would find that the rot of standards and bad connectivity are be even worse than on civi-street.
3) The Thrifty Gene
There’s nothing wrong with being thrifty, it saves on resources and expenses, which can’t be a bad thing, right? However, anyone who has lived in China a long time will note that the Chinese as a race seem very prone to being thrifty. One could cite a whole host of reasons why this maybe the case but it’s not too outlandish to state that over the years natural selection has favoured those with thrifty tendencies. This “thrifty gene” pervades all levels of society and it is my belief that it is directly responsible for an array of product disasters that have far reaching consequences. In his book Badly Made in China, Midler lists out countless horror stories of manufacturers adulterating products to increase their bottom line. However, I think it is too superficial to conclude that this is only motivated by a desire to realize more profit. It is much more benign than out-right vindictiveness and is directly related to the thrifty gene. For the average Chinese boss, the thought of throwing something away because it is only slightly wrong pulls so hard on their thrifty gene that it is almost impossible to do. To discard something that is almost perfect makes no sense, just supply it to a market that doesn’t require such high standards and move on. The thrifty gene is directly responsible for the bad practice of substituting one expensive product with another lower grade product. Don’t get me wrong here, a primary reason is to maximize cost, but this bad habit is made much easier by the thrifty genes compulsion to skim a little here and take a little there. Why use a hundred when fifty works just as well? Add this compulsion to the low standards trap and the thrifty gene has a proven track record of creating products that fail right when they really need to work. A classic example is the case of the faulty naval shells in the 1895 war with Japan. The ruling aristocracy was quick to blame Li Hung Chang’s family for their unscrupulous provision of shells that had been partially filled with sand, rather than the obvious gunpowder, but this is a much too superficial conclusion and ignores the real cause. The thrifty gene. Prior to the war, no one could see the consequences of substituting a bit of sand to off set the cost of the expensive gunpowder. Anyone who believes that in the 21st century Chinese companies would now never supply sub-standard products to their nations military only need to look at the Sanlu, melamine milk scandal of 2008 to realize that this habit is still alive and kicking in modern day China. If the nations’ biggest milk company, aided by the Communist party, would actively and knowingly supply the nations’ babies with poisoned milk is it really believable that the thrifty gene isn’t chipping away at all levels of the military supply chain as well?
On top of this, the thrifty gene has another dangerous tendency, the habit of saving the best equipment until it is absolutely necessary with any wear and tear on it prior to it really being needed frowned upon. This is the mindset that rationalizes that the best china tea-set should only be used for special occasions but what happens is the tea-set becomes so revered that no occasion is ever worthy of getting it out. So it NEVER gets used. To some extent we’re all guilty of this mind of conserving what’s deemed the ‘best’ and not wasting it on the mundane, but in China this attitude can be taken to the extreme. I believe this bad habit is endemic in the armed forces, with senior officers, compelled by their thrifty gene, to hold back from using their best kit as they will not want to waste it on something small and save it for the ‘bigger fight.’ So just like the proverbial tea-set the best equipment will go unused when in actuality it would be better to be using it everyday to its maximum potential. If you think I’m making wild assumptions then maybe you should go a read some Chinese war history and you will clearly see that keeping the best troops in reserve is an habitual habit of Chinese generals.
Why des this matter to the navy?
Because in a naval skirmish, the best go in first, and are often lost to win the greater war. Take the example of HMS Hood against the Bismark, the talismen of the Royal Navy obliterated in a blink of an eye. I remain unconvinced that a PLA ship captain has both the training and worldview similar to the captain of HMS Hood.
To conclude, the combined problem of low standards and bad connectivity are exacerbated by the thrifty gene which all act to compound one another. Admittedly, these factors are all subjective opinions that can’t be proven by hard evidence, but anyone who has spent anytime in China will witness these three factors on a daily basis interacting with each other and creating all kinds of comical and sometimes fatal outcomes. So, is it really sensible to believe that the Chinese military, the most conservative and insular organization in China has somehow risen above them?
I doubt it and only time will tell.
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