Efforts to project country’s economic and military clout around the world set to accelerate
BEIJING—China’s efforts to project its economic and military clout around the world are set to accelerate as the country fleshes out plans for new trade routes between Europe and Asia in 2016 and tries to consolidate its grasp over disputed islands in the South China Sea.
With Beijing holding the rotating presidency of the Group of 20 nations next year, Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to press ahead with his drive to challenge U.S. dominance of the global financial and security order.
That threatens to put Beijing increasingly at odds with Washington, although U.S. President Barack Obama, preoccupied by Russia and the Mideast, is expected to avoid a major confrontation with China in his final year in office.
One potential flash point is the South China Sea, where U.S. officials have said that American navy ships and planes will continue to patrol—roughly twice every quarter—near artificial islands China has built in the last two years.
Since the U.S. resumed those patrols in October, China has repeatedly denounced them as violations of its sovereignty and warned it will take all necessary countermeasures, but it hasn’t tried to physically block or expel U.S. vessels. Its capacity to patrol the area will be enhanced when it finishes much of its construction of airfields, radar stations and other facilities on the artificial islands.
“The islands aren’t growing out any more: They’re now growing up,” Gregory Poling, an expert on Asian maritime security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in a recent podcast. “By which I mean China’s focused on building all the infrastructure—the buildings, the ports—that are going to be needed to make these functioning bases,” he said.
The potential for miscalculation is great: An American B-52 bomber, flying through bad weather, unintentionally strayed within two nautical miles of one of China’s artificial islands, U.S. officials said this month.
Another point of contention has been a court case brought by the Philippines—a U.S. ally—over China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. The international tribunal in The Hague is scheduled to make a final decision around June.
Tensions over Taiwan, an old irritant to China-U.S. ties, risk flaring up again with the anticipated victory of an independence-leaning candidate in a presidential election in January. Beijing sees the island as a renegade province but Washington is obliged by U.S. law to help defend it.
Cybersecurity attacks, a more recent strain in relations, were tackled this year with a new dialogue mechanism agreed upon in September. Next year will test how quickly Beijing carries out investigations of past attacks, or how well the mechanism manages allegations of fresh attacks. U.S. officials say sanctions remain an option.
Both China and the U.S. have sought to play down tensions over the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB, which Beijing established this year as a counterpart to the U.S.-dominated World Bank and Japan-dominated Asian Development Bank.
The AIIB is due to dispense its first loans in 2016, providing the first indications of whether it will complement existing institutions, as Beijing says, or undermine international governance standards, as Washington fears.
The Chinese government is also expected to unveil several new infrastructure projects as part of its much-vaunted “One Belt, One Road” program to build new trade and transport links between Asia and Europe.
While Washington has welcomed Beijing’s plans to finance infrastructure in the developing world, U.S. officials remain wary of China’s strategic goals and are closely monitoring its efforts to secure staging points for its military overseas.
One potential area of friction in the coming year is the East African nation of Djibouti, where the U.S. has a large military base and where China confirmed last month that it was seeking to build its first overseas military outpost.
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