China's Strategic Options in the Euro-Atlantic

China is becoming an ever-more prominent actor in the global maritime commons, emerging as a key player in sectors such as global shipping. China is also gradually expanding its military footprint outside its region and developing the capacity for power projection at reach. For policymakers in the Euro-Atlantic, this raises the prospect of a Chinese military presence in the region and its environs (such as the South Atlantic and the Arctic). This paper seeks to outline the likely scope of a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) putative presence in and around the Euro-Atlantic in the next 15 years and the nature of the foreign policy it will support.

Key Findings

While there is some rationale for a PLAN presence in the Euro-Atlantic and its environs, the challenges of maintaining an extra-regional military presence at any scale will limit its scope. China’s blue-water capabilities are still nascent and even after likely growth, resourcing either a rotational or permanent deployment of PLAN capabilities will impose challenging force structure trade-offs on a navy that already faces the daunting task of competing in both the Pacific and Indian oceans.

Despite this, the bottlenecks in key Chinese supply chains that begin in the Atlantic may provide incentives for a future Chinese leader to decide that a military presence at scale is warranted – such a choice will probably not be made in the medium term (10–15 years). Much of China’s military activity, including defence engagement, is likely to be Phase 0 shaping to set the conditions if such a shift is chosen.

While China will represent a very limited military challenge in the region, it is likely to seek coercive options towards Europe. Beijing’s most likely foreign policy towards Europe would combine elements of coercion and engagement, since China needs the European market, but seeks a degree of leverage.

China has several coercive options that leverage maritime power. Its central role in port infrastructure and support to Russia’s economy and military are two options that it might leverage. While many of these options either do not involve the PLAN, or involve it primarily as a supporting element, they can have second-order ramifications for European navies.

Although a future PLAN presence should not be a basis for strategic distraction from the core tasks of Europe’s navies in terms of deterring Russia, its shaping activities in the region should be monitored and where possible constrained.