The close encounter between a Chinese diesel sub and the American carrier USS Kitty Hawk on October 26 near Okinawa, first reported openly in the U.S. in mid-November, has already generated quite a lot of commentary. ..
China's seaward ambitions for deterrence -- both nuclear and conventional -- and for self-proclaimed regional hegemony need to be understood in the context of Beijing's own evolving, translucent (not opaque) strategic culture. The modern Song-class passive sonars are certainly good enough to know at a range of 10,000 yards that a group of big and noisy surface ships was there. No PLAN submarine captain in his right mind would surface in such conditions unless he wanted to be absolutely sure that his presence, previously undetected within the carrier's inner defense zone, was made unmistakably clear to theater U.S. admirals and their higher-ups inside the Beltway.
China is progressively drawing wider and wider deep-water redlines, warnings that her self-perceived inviolable defense interests lie thousands of miles beyond her coast, and American naval forces will in future cross those redlines at their perile.
A previous redline was signaled in 2003, when a Ming-class diesel sub transited on the surface between two of Japan's main islands in an east-to-west direction -- that is, on its way home from somewhere out in the blue Pacific. The Ming had not been previously detected despite its obsolescent design. Beijing was proving pointedly that the First Island Chain does not present an effective barrier to a surprise surge of Chinese submarines, a surge that could prove militarily decisive around 2030. On that timeframe, America's submarine fleet will have dwindled to barely 40, while China's is on a path to numbering 180 or even more by then.
