Submitted by 2point6billion.com Blog

The maritime arms race in Asia has crossed another threshold with the publication of satellite pictures of a massive Chinese underground submarine and warship base giving it a significant tactical advantage in the strategically important South China Sea.The naval base has been constructed by tunnelling into the mountainous shoreline of China’s southern Hainan Island near a place called Sanya.

The Times of India reported that the splashing of new satellite images of the underground base in the British media has reinforced the belief in the Indian defence establishment that it will not be long before the rapidly-modernising Chinese navy begins to make active forays into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

“The Chinese SSBN (nuclear submarines armed with long-range strategic missiles) programme is very active. We have not really seen their submarines in IOR till now but it’s only a matter of time before they start flexing their muscles here,” said former navy chief Admiral (retd) Arun Prakash.

China and India, after all, are fighting for the same strategic space in the IOR, with the former hugely dependent on the oil shipping sea lanes passing through the region. Much more than Pakistan, Indian defence experts view China as the real long-term military threat.

India has good reason to be worried, China is leagues ahead of India in virtually all aspects of military projects. Take submarines, for instance. To India’s 16 conventional diesel-electric submarines, China has 57 attack submarines, including a dozen of them nuclear ones.

The Hainan Island underground base, incidentally, will house the new Shang-class (Type-093) nuclear-powered attack submarines and the Jin-class (Type-094) SSBNs.

“China is also developing the new submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missile JL-2, with a range of 8,000 km, to arm the Jin-class submarines. As per reports, China will have five of these submarines operational by 2010,” said a top navy officer.

Even in terms of conventional weapons, China is surging ahead. In the last seven years, it has imported US$12 billion worth of weapon systems from Russia alone, including Kilo-class submarines, Sovremenny-class destroyers, Sukhoi-27 and Sukhoi-30 fighter jets.

Apart from this military imbalance, India remains apprehensive of China’s strategic moves in the region. With its “string of pearls” strategy, China has already encircled India by assiduously forging maritime linkages with eastern Africa, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar, among other countries.

India has tried to counter this spreading arc of Chinese influence only in recent times by trying to build maritime bridges with countries in the IOR as well as the Asia-Pacific region. Though experts hold that China’s SSBN, ballistic missile and other military programmes are at this point in time primarily directed against any move by the US to intervene in the Taiwan Strait, India will have to keep a close watch on the People’s Liberation Army’s expanding capabilities. China, after all, actively continues to help Pakistan with its missile and nuclear programmes with the intention to use it as a pawn to checkmate India.