There is something distinctly High Victorian about Di Dongsheng’s closing proclamation that “the descendants of the dragon shall ultimately rule the stars and the waves”. Indeed, the piece certainly strikes an extremely hawkish tone throughout, with Di proposing the establishment of a naval–merchant–financial complex to wrest maritime power from the “Anglo Saxons”. Yet Di is also picking up on a familiar thread in Chinese strategic thinking, made newly urgent by events around the Strait of Hormuz: the vulnerability and importance of maritime chokepoints.
The argument is framed, at least, with a defensive fig leaf. Despite the new “relationship of constructive strategic stability between China and the United States”, Di does not believe that Trump has “accepted defeat”, and he expects the US to build leverage against China’s vulnerabilities, chief among which are chokepoints on its vital maritime routes. His solution? China should embark on a thirty-year effort to secure dominance over…