China’s Strange Fascination with the Soviet Navy

“We Will Die, but … Sink the Enemy’s Entire Squadron:  We Will Not Cause Our Navy to Lose Face”

Russia is back in vogue among Chinese strategists, at least for now.  Undoubtedly, this excitement is partly the result of recent geopolitical developments in Eastern Europe, but the trend was also evident before the Ukraine Crisis.  Whereas discussions of direct historical links between Chinese and Soviet strategy had been a somewhat taboo subject for decades, these discussions are now becoming ever more common.   A recent Chinese book published by the Chinese military, for example, describes in extreme detail the critical Soviet aid given to the establishment of China’s naval air force back in the early 1950s. However, these discussions go well beyond history to draw major overarching lessons for future Chinese naval development, including “缓解…本土战略压力 [relieving strategic pressure against the … homeland].”