Admiral blair serves as a member of the Energy Security leadership council, the National Bureau of Asian Research, u. S. China relations in the atlantic council. Previously served as director of National Intelligence from january 2009 to may 2010 and prior to retiring from the navy he was after 34 years commander of u. S. Pacific command, admiral blair will provide testimony on the drivers of chinas development of expeditionary capabilities. After admiral blair we will hear from kristin, chief executive officer of Vantage Point asia llc, a consultancy that provides expertise on the Indo Pacific Region with a focus on Chinese Foreign policy and Security Issues. She also holds a position of abject senior policy analyst at asd, formally she served director of the navy asiapacific Advisory Group at the pentagon. And was a senior project director for Chinese Military writtenrity, she has extensively on Chinese Foreign policy security and military affairs. She will address how bri furthers their expeditionary capabilities as well. Thank you for your testimony, we will begin. Thanks forning and inviting me here. I think it would be most valuable if i cut to the chase here. I think what you are concerned , whichs whether china concurrently which can projected will expandan or that capability elsewhere in the world. Heather bring the military dimension of coercive diplomacy to join economic and diplomatic activities, which it currently conducts. To start by useful reminding ourselves of what that is. Projectionsne power asserting political influence at distance through the use or threat of use of military force, thats what we are talking about here and so power protection has single of levels from a ship visiting a port, a ship visiting a port in a country is a little bit different from the orchestra visiting that country as it implies the edge of hey we can show military force in small nice beaches,ve but there is a stiletto under the glove. All the way up through highend combinations of amphibious , global, air assaults powers, see control, air control to do it. Of power a full range projection capability on the maritime frontiers. They have a plan and capability for a full invasion of taiwan. There were team the use coercive diplomacy throughout the region and can they and will they bring that out, i think its useful to think in terms of two zones in addition to the maritime frontiers that i think china thinks in these terms. One is the area from the middle , thethrough Southeast Asia south asia and then there is the rest of the world beyond that so the maritime frontiers, south asia area and then the rest of the world. Do they have the ambitions or capability to expand this capability out there. Lets talk about this area of south asia since it is an area of chinese focus. Xi jinpings signature Foreign Policy the belden Road Initiative is focused on that region. They aim to make china the transportation hub for all Economic Activity in that area and therefore have a tremendous amount of economic influence and then build other influence on top of that. What about the military influence within that . Which is been relatively restrained at this point, the Shanghai Cooperative Organization brings in a lot of those countries who are familiar patrols thatpiracy had rotations of. Next . Omes we do have to take seriously what the chinese say and as you read their documents, the power projection appears nowhere in those documents. They are not talking about it. I dont think there some secret program they are talking about. I think they are not counting on it right now but the history of chinese overseas missions has been missions expand with expanding capabilities. Something that was not possible or talked about before becomes possible and talked about capabilities. We have seen that in chinese areas. Idling the lack of it being addressed is particularly significant. Real capabilities involved in power projection. For china to get forces into the indian ocean, into south asia, they have to pass through International Waters or airspace where they dont need anybodys permission, they have to go through the strait of singapore, it ready narrow entries, both of them subject to interruption. What they need to have a deployable usable highend projection capability in that part of the world are a couple of bases. ,hink of United States bases once we used to have in the philippines. Talking about ship repair and airstrip, ammunitions storage, supply storage, a serious maritime projection base. The two candidates for that i would say to grow out of the belden Road Initiative are the china which ends in the myanmar corridor on the sea. And then the china Pakistan Economic corridor which ends right at the mouth of the edges of the persian gulf. Basesna could establish on those two key ports with secure supply lines running from china, they would have the basis for a serious projection capability in that part of the world. But there are some very major practical problems in achieving that. Primarily the attitudes of both myanmar and pakistan which heretofore have shown no desire to have chinese troops stationed in their country and in fact they have been careful about it and in the mrs case of cutback chinese influence. When you look at those actual routes through myanmar and pakistan, they go through pretty ungoverned areas in which the governments of myanmar and pakistan dont really run the show right now and those lines of communications are subject to interruption. The United States has a fair amount of experience trying to put military installations into difficult parts of the world and it has not been a happy experience. So i think there is some. Ractical difficulties there what what would i do about it . Which is more important and i will make this quick. I think the United States needs to concentrate its efforts in east asia where the challenge is direct. We have allies that china is trying to undercut our support to. China is trying to undercut american use of air and sea space. It needing chinese permission. We need to build off the capability of our forces there rightsr to enforce our and thats air and naval power and keeping our alliances in good shape. That will not not that will not only protect strong interest we have in what is the Economic Center of the world, but in addition that will focus chinese attention on the part of the world and tend to dampen their appetite capability and interest in going further. Let me stop there and we can go further with questions. Thank you. It is not as you testify here on chinas expeditionary military capabilities. I was asked to focus on the belden Road Initiative and legal tools and scaredy framework that china is using to justify the development and use of the capabilities. As well as how people experience with overseas deployment is driving the development. So be on the motivations discussed in the Previous Panel and by admiral blair, china justifies the development of capabilities in three ways. Align beijing works to security interests of bri countries through the creation of Security Dialogue and frameworks for Security Cooperation. Which provide a foundation for future military cooperation and potentially expanded presence. Examples include chinas efforts to protect bri projects through corp. Through the organization which is focused on counterterrorism and the protection of oil and gas pipelines. Mechanismnnial includes pakistan, afghanistan and china and provides a form for military and Security Cooperation between those members. So those are just a few examples of the type of Security Cooperation frameworks china is developing. 2015 china adopted a counterterrorism law that provides legal justification for the plas to deploy overseas for counterterrorism missions. It is not say they need to receive permission from the host country. The language and law is kind of vague. Counterterrorism missions can theoretically to be a threat to citizens, bri info structure or overseas port facilities and shipping lanes. So given this could hypothetically deploy overseas under the counterterrorism law to address many of these contingencies. China cultivates the narrative that Expeditionary Capability will lead to interNational Security. They used totive justify overseas operations such as the u. N. Peacekeeping mission , the piracy operations in the opening of the Djibouti Naval base which chinese commentary stated was good for regional stability and that allows china to contribute to international obligations. Chinase are three ways uses legal tools, secured frameworks and narratives to justify the acquisition and use of expeditionary capabilities. I was asked to comment on pla overseas appointment and how pla uses these as training opportunities for expeditionary missions. Provideunter efforts to and the chinese talk about it in their literature. While the training is likely insufficient for the larger scale expeditionary operations. It does offer the pla benefits. First through u. N. Peacekeeping missions, they gain experience operating in a multinational force. Other they do not have a great experience working with her commanding multinational forces. Piracy has begin to iron out logistics for the deploying taskforces. These areas would still be challenges for sure for the pla and larger overseas operations. Finally perhaps the greatest gannett the greatest benefit as they help to normalize chinas military presence abroad. They contribute to chinas influence through building Security Cooperation and military ties with local forces and host country governments and support the narrative a pla is a stronger expedition or capacity is better for security. The plas current overseas mission a relatively limited in scope and do not offer the kind of training the military would likely need from a complex tradition or operations. Only small resent of troops and commanders have these missions. Many of their expeditionary gas capabilities will be tested for the first time in a crisis. Useonclusion, china will its defense of Global Security interests along with Security Cooperation agreements to justify the development and use of its expeditionary capabilities. One implication of this approach is we should be prepared for a china that will consider the use of its overseas military power as a Foreign Policy tool and it doesnt need a great deal of military power to use it a Foreign Policy tool influencing. This is already happening. Africa and central asia and south asia augment chinas economic and political influence in the regions and its relations with countries were china interests are growing. This also carries some risk for china is increased use of the military overseas may backfire and alienate some countries. Following on this point, one recommendation is to look for opportunities to shape chinas use overseas. This can include rallying u. S. Allied allies partnered when its in the u. S. Interest to resolve Security Issues or it might include using a lack of involvement to attempt to tip them in using nonmilitary options. This will likely require increasing dialogue and appealing overseas, defense and double medic attack chaise. I think i will stop there. Thank you. Commissioner campos. Thanks so much for being here today. And thank you for your testimony. I have two questions for you. I appreciate your taxonomy on the types of power projection and how we ought to think of this term which has very broad applications. You had a great deal of clarity to this issue. In a way the first three types of examples of power projection activity are already underway. China has conducted them. Pointsmparable to the made earlier about the major city state competition. I want to focus on the fourth area of power projection. The highest power Projection Capabilities has developed during world war ii and maintained and used in the 75 years since. China is nowhere near developing the scale power projection capability and you cite a couple backasons in your mind, when your commanderinchief of u. S. Pacific command, what would be the specific kinds of capabilities that would grab your attention to suggest that the pla was more interested in conducting this category four level of power projection. I would not have anything terribly original there. Of amphibious capabilities, lhas that theyve just built. Chinaexercises within within Airborne Assault forces and a tremendous thickening of the logistic support. Where you have to carry most of it there. And then on the political side i the unitedto states really uses we do a big scale overseas interventions we have an ally we can flow into and if chinaso relationships with pakistan or myanmar or one of the countries they deal with begin to take that turn, than i would become concerned. Those the ones i would look for. The second area is you talk about the zones and the chinese interest in rejecting power in the zone. Role should be really there is also concern the transition from zones one to two and two to three. Zone three, maybe the most concerning over a long. Of time, not imminently. And you say china does not what would be the transition point. That maybe this was changing . What would be the indicators to suggest that they were desiring of employing or aspiring to use capabilities and that outermost zone. American relations there so strong that although we suffer we diss the western pacific countries and dont carry out our trustee duties, the structure is all there and it doesnt take much for us to get back in the game and be pretty dominant. I think the main indicator there would be sort of a lessening of American Interest and concern and involvement in these parts of the world. Our relations with europe and latin america and the western pacific countries. China can make up for the difference. That would really be number one. Do things china itself could , my experiences economic influence however strong does not translate into control over another country possible Vital National security interests. Countries try to keep them separate as they can. To a key comes down decision they will go in terms of National Security every time. Especially if its making life difficult. States has to keep good relations, keep up the military diplomacy. Key parts of the region and china wont see a wedge there that it can drive into and it will work on much closer more vital to it areas its maritime zones in the south asia thing we talked about. I just wanted to add onto that. I dont think we should forget china has a multilayered approach to developing the security relationship overseas. In addition to the economic can used the fact they some of their expeditionary capabilities, their tools like arms sales. Before opening the base in djibouti there was an uptick in arms sales to djibouti. They have optics in arms sales in the middle east and other places where they want a strategic relationship and so for me one indicator obvious the different governments that would be different but one indicator would be whether china is pursuing efforts like that as to whether they would want to develop a base somewhere else. Thank you both. Very helpful testimony, my question is for you, you talk about and i was scrambling to find it. You talk about the Chinese Governments analysis of the role overseas and their understanding of how they are perceived. We had a hearing about what keeps him up at night is what amounts to an echo chamber in decisionmaking. Its taiwan or hong kong or pakistan, there are increasingly a sense that his authority is not questioned. So im curious about when you say that the chinese analysis of their position abroad, what does that analysis look like. Who conducts it, who what are the perceptions rank and file out in the field in terms of how often they are versus what the party sense of their role and impact is in beijing . I could probably talk for one hour on that but i wont. Good. First of all a lot of that analysis comes from you can see in the speeches the motivations behind the development of expeditionary pla. Things at the china dream connecting it to great power status and Strong Military and bri links chinese economic and Security Issues in such a way that it is taking the new Historic Missions and broadening it out into the next step. Beyond official speeches there are plenty of analysis on the bri from think from think tanks that talk about Security Issues. Theres definitely been a stove piping of information going up to xi jinping in recent years. I cant answer exactly how much of that filters up to him that a but a lot of the motivations are discussed by him in official speeches and also defense white papers and things they have published. In terms of party influence in the field which i think was your second question, they have these new Theater Commands and theres even gaps within regional contingencies of who would commit different operations for the Theater Commands. So, for example