The Power of Port Visits

 Port visits are perhaps one of the most critical and important roles a warship can carry out. The act of entering another nations territory, bringing your own little space of national sovereignty with you, and engaging in meaningful dialogue, engagement and diplomacy is an ancient and time honoured way of using warships to carry out ‘soft power’. Many nations engage in port visits with their warships for a variety of reasons, but all see benefit in doing so.

Unlike the deployment of aircraft or troops, a port visit is a fantastic diplomatic tool for showing support discretely while still sending a visible message. In a tense diplomatic environment, the deployment of aircraft or troops on exercises or joint operations can be seen as an escalation – it puts foreign nationals on another nations turf in a highly visible way, and reliant on that nation for support. Any exercise conducted requires that nations approval, and in turn requires them to approve access to logistics, moving in ammunition and supplies and agreement on status of forces agreements. While a valuable tool in the defence training arsenal, visits, except at the lowest possible level, by ground and air forces can be problematic and cause longer term challenges.

Ship visits are discrete, the vessel can easily stand off outside of a nations port if required, or change course and go to an entirely different country. When alongside the ship is a self contained area of national sovereignty, not reliant on the host nation (although shore support is always appreciated), and a floating diplomatic embassy. The act of boarding a foreign warship without permission is a gross breach of international law and can lead to serious diplomatic crises. A warship is a floating embassy of her nation, able to provide support, send a message and if required, slip away as if she was never there. Port visits are a very powerful tool in the soft power diplomatic arsenal.

They can also be occasionally problematic and cause tensions to rise – one such case has been the recent visit to Sri Lanka by the Chinese vessel Yuan Wang 5, ostensibly a ‘research ship’ intended for peaceful scientific use. In reality this ship appears well equipped with equipment to monitor missile tests and conduct a variety of intelligence gathering operations, much to the alarm of India and other regional powers. The visit represents the growing desire of the Chinese to operate their naval power more widely, but also the limits on their reach and authority.  There were widespread protests about this visit, and it acquired a lot of negative media coverage in advance. Although it passed off peacefully, it highlights that ship visits can at times do more harm than good.

What the visit highlights is that if you wish to use your navy as a force of maritime diplomacy, then it must be done in a way that does not cause a diplomatic incident. In terms of sending a message, the act of deploying a large scale intelligence collection platform just off the coast of India was not remotely subtle, but was a good way of sending a message to the Indians that China has the ability to monitor and record their activity, and that the PLA Navy can reach their waters. Given the tense relationship between the two nations this will not be a welcome message.

Arguably though the visit also exposes the not inconsiderable weaknesses in the Chinese diplomatic and military position too. To experience such volatile response to a ship visit highlights that China is not a uniformly welcomed visitor, and that their presence does not always generate a positive response. That the visit occurred in a port that the Chinese have taken over from the Sri Lankans highlights too the reverse colonialism that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is generating, in that while it provides short term aid (and fills deep pockets), it also gives the Chinese access and influence to strategic locations. This is increasingly unpopular with many nations, who are concerned at the way that China is acquiring strategic assets, often at rock bottom prices as a result of defaults on BRI loans, or other shady deals.

For the Chinese the visit will also highlight that in addition to not being hugely welcome in the region, they are also reliant on a very limited number of ports to operate out of with military vessels. As the PLA grows, it will need access to ports and airheads to enable its stores ships to be resupplied with fuel, stores and munitions to help keep Chinese warships at sea. This is a truism of all major naval powers – blue water navies can only exist with access to brown water airports and harbours. Yet China lacks much in the way of meaningful access to do this – beyond Djibouti, there is no military base that hosts Chinese forces in the Indian Ocean, and no known arrangements to share fuel and supplies from third party nations.

By contrast the Royal Navy enjoys excellent global logistical arrangements thanks to decades of defence diplomacy helping ensure that when an RN vessel pulls into ports, it can carry out the full range of resupply and storing. This isn’t something that can be taken for granted, and requires a lot of Defence Attaches and civil servants to facilitate diplomatic clearances and visit approvals to get aircraft, supplies and spare parts in and out of country. Although hard work it means that RN ships can use many foreign ports as a location not just to relax, but also to conduct repairs or even minor maintenance periods in a way that the Chinese Navy cannot do at present.

This raises the interesting question as to just how effective the future Chinese Navy will be if it lacks the ability to really support and sustain forces at distance from the homeland. While in near waters the rapidly growing force of modern ships, on paper at least, represents a significant challenge to other nations, it is questionable as to how much of a threat this represents more widely. Investment in tankers and supply ships will only go so far, and they too will need to pull into port and resupply / restore. Without the diplomatic access and ability to keep their forces sustained in the medium term, any Chinese task force operating at a distance from the homeland may look visually impressive, but actually have limited combat utility.  

The challenge ahead is to understand whether the visit by the Yuan Wang 5 was an aberration and that other ships will be able to visit peacefully and  with less incidents, or if this marks a turning point in the ability of the Chinese to operate in the blue water ocean. The West appears to be increasingly assertive in trying to prevent Chinese access to some ports and other critical national infrastructure, particularly in the smaller Pacific Island states, which could make visits like this even harder in future.  Cut off from shore support and with visits being limited in scope, and resupply or replenishment hard to come by, could China find herself a nation with a large navy, but nowhere to sail and visit?

For the West the biggest return on their investment to counter China may not be ships, missiles and aircraft, but investment in diplomatic presence, quiet diplomacy and foreign aid. Efforts to persuade smaller nations not to accept Chinese ship visits, to disrupt their ability to support their fleet at a distance and to make it harder for the Chinese to maintain a credible threat at a distance could pay long term dividends. This calls for engagement and diplomacy, as well as investment in more modern military equipment.

If ever there was a need for a reminder that soft power and diplomacy are as important as hard military power when it comes to shaping long term strategic goals, then the issue of Port Visits is probably it.