Many-Headed Dragon in the Indo-Pacific
THE TITLE FOR THIS COLUMN IS meant to be more deliberate than dramatic. Chinese seapower in the western Pacific, its current primary area of concern, is already well and truly multi-dimensional. The PLA-N (People’s Liberation Army-Navy) is its lead instrument. But land, air, space and cyber dimensions are its important and growing partners. That may well be the reality in the Indian Ocean as well a decade from now. The signs are discernible if we wish to read the tea leaves.
More specifically, the Chinese navy has grown at a pace never seen before. Even the raising of a navy by
