Abstract
This article, published in 2004 in China’s most prestigious military journal, China Military Science, merits special attention as a cogent explanation for the recent acceleration in China’s naval development that has been manifested by the wide array of sophisticated warships that have emerged from Chinese shipyards since 2000. Xu asserts that contemporary Chinese maritime geostrategy is powerfully informed by a tragic history in which “China’s rulers shut the door to the outside world [and] the sea . . . was neglected. . . . [Thus,] the sea became a springboard for invaders.” But the geostrategic environment for China’s maritime expansion is now favorable, because of a confluence of global trends, including the collapse of the USSR, the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the emergence of a “large Chinese economic bloc” as a global force, and Beijing’s newly agile diplomacy.
 
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