China ‘Harbours’ greater ambitions than just Taiwan

Is China intent on a D-Day style invasion of Taiwan? Certainly that has been the tone of some of the reporting following the emergence of photos and videos depicting massive new Chinese barges designed for land-to-sea military operations.

The fact that China launched a two-day military drill in the Taiwan Strait earlier this week has only intensified such fears.

Yet, the curious thing about a potential war involving China, which has one of the world’s most advanced militaries, is that it is supported by technology first used some 80 years ago – specifically, the Mulberry Harbours.

They were floating piers that allowed the Allies to deploy land vehicles onto the beaches at Normandy on June 6, 1944, known as D-Day.

Still, as an expert on the history and geopolitics of the Mulberry Harbours, I believe using the World War II example obscures far more than it clarifies about today’s geopolitical situation.

Indeed, while the new Chinese ships may be operationally similar to their historical forebears, the strategic situation is far different.

Breakaway province

The possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, an island the mainland Communist Party sees as part of its territory, is the most pressing security issue in the Asia-Pacific region.

Beijing has increasingly ratcheted up the aggressive rhetoric toward the government in Taipei during the premiership of President Xi Jinping.

One reading of Xi is that his rhetoric is part of a move to burnish China’s power globally, labeling Taiwan as a renegade or breakaway province. For many, this is a clear indication of his intention to invade and bring the island within the geography of Chinese sovereignty.

From the United States perspective, President Donald Trump’s administration believes China is the main threat to US national security, though Washington’s commitment to the defense of Taiwan remains uncertain, much like his ultimate policy views toward Beijing.

Aside from the geopolitics, any decision by Beijing to invade the democratic island would mean attempting an extremely challenging military operation that is, historically speaking, a risky proposition. Seaborne invasions have often led to high casualties or even failure.

The Gallipoli landings on the coast of Turkey during World War I, for example, led to the withdrawal of mainly Australian and New Zealand forces after high casualties.

In World War II, island-hopping by US forces to push back Japan’s advance achieved strategic goals – but at a high human cost.

The difficulty posed by sea-to-land invasion is not just the battles on Day 1, it is the logistical challenge of continuing to funnel troops and materiel to sustain a push out from the beachhead. That is where the barges come into play.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was skeptical of opening a front against Nazi Germany by a landing on the French coast – a position that frustrated the United States. His main concern was the logistical puzzle.

Scuttled ships

Churchill and his generals reasoned that Germany would either retain control of French ports or sabotage them and that tanks, guns, food, soldiers and other necessities were not going to be brought up from reserve areas.

The Mulberry Harbours fixed that problem by creating a set of floating piers that would rise up and down with the tide by being fixed to sophisticated anchors.

Ships could moor to these piers and unload needed material. The piers were protected by an inner ring of concrete caissons, dragged across the channel and sunk into position, and an outer breakwater of scuttled ships.

The Mulberry Harbours were a combination of cutting-edge pier technology and improvisation.

The images of Chinese invasion barges this week show that the technology has advanced, but the principle of an operational need for logistical support of a beachhead breakout is the same.

Yet the geography is very different. In World War II, the Mulberry Harbours were part of an invasion from an island to conquer a continent. But a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be in reverse – from a continent to an island.

The use of Mulberry Harbours, as innovative as it was, was only a moment in a longer geopolitical process.

The D-Day invasion was the culmination of the transfer of US military might across the Atlantic through Operation Bolero. Simply, the United Kingdom became a giant warehouse – mainly for American soldiers and equipment.

The Mulberry Harbours made the crossing of the English Channel possible for these men and weapons. It was the last step in the projection of US power across the Atlantic Ocean and onto the European continent.

I describe this as a process of a seapower moving from its near or coastal waters to far waters in another part of the globe.

Taiwan Strait

The calculation for China is very different. Certainly, barges would help an invasion across the Taiwan Strait. But China sees Taiwan as part of its near waters, and it wants to secure them from global competition.

Beijing views the US as having established a military presence just off its coastline from World War II to the present day, making the western Pacific another set of United States far waters across the globe accompanying its European presence.

From its perspective, China is surrounded by US military bases in Okinawa, Guam and the Philippines. This chain could restrict its ambition through a blockade while controlling Taiwan would help Beijing take out a link.

Of course, China does not just have an eye on its near waters. It has also created a far water presence of its own.

It has built an ocean-going navy, established a military base in Djibouti, and through its Belt and Road Initiative become an economic and political presence across the Indian, Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

Chinese invasion barges could be deployed quite early in the process of moving from near to far waters. The Mulberry Harbours, conversely, were deployed once the US had already secured its Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific near waters.

Historical comparisons with the Mulberry Harbours are an interesting way to look at the new Chinese invasion barges and consider the operational scale of geopolitics.

But as with the World War II case, China-Taiwan tensions are simply a modern example of a local theater – this time, the Taiwanese Strait – being part of a greater global process of power projection.

Strategic value

The comparisons to Mulberry Harbours, therefore, are not with the technology itself but its role in a mechanism of historical geopolitical change. The reemergence of invasion barges may be a sign that a new conflict is on the horizon.

If that were the case, the irony is that China would be using Mulberry Harbour-type technology to secure its position in the western Pacific at the same time the Trump administration is questioning the strategic value of the US presence in Europe.

A presence that was established during World War II and, at least in part, due to the use of the Mulberry Harbours.

Colin Flint, is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Utah State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of China Factor.