Interdiction of maritime transport alone will not necessarily achieve the full goals of the campaign by itself, although it will likely have a devastating (though reversible) effect on PRC industry and power generation. The PRC’s domestic energy supplies, combined with refining capability, ensure that the military could still be supplied with sufficient energy supplies to conduct sustained operations, albeit at a significant cost to other domestic priorities.

Local energy shortages will likely be exacerbated and reallocation of suddenly scarce resources would be challenging even for a country where the actual flows of resources were well known. The infrastructure degradation campaign is intended to give the resource denial efforts a push in the wrong direction by disrupting, incapacitating or destroying critical chokepoints in energy transport and production.

The most lucrative targets are rail tunnels and bridges, certain refinery components, international oil pipelines and oil transfer terminals. Nonlethal means may be used in addition to lethal ones, although even a nonlethal attack on petroleum handling or refining facilities can result in a lethal catastrophic effect.

The infrastructure degradation pillar is intended to constrain overland imports, while simultaneously destroying the refinery capacity necessary to turn strategic reserve or domestic crude oil into usable fuel and interdicting rail and water transportation at their most vulnerable points.

IV. Distant interdiction

The distant interdiction pillar involves a maritime interdiction effort aimed specifically against ships bound for China with energy cargoes, particularly oil, refined oil products and coal.

It is the most legally complex of the pillars in that it involves action against both Chinese and foreign-owned shipping. It is also the pillar that can and should consist largely of actions that involve minimal property destruction, although it does involve the use of force. It takes advantage of the fact that the vast majority of China’s imported energy supplies come through chokepoints that can be easily interdicted. The distant interdiction effort stretches from the Asian continental shelf all the way back to the original points of embarkation.

The maritime geography is unfavorable for China. Unlike the United States, which has four coasts that are mostly devoid of potentially hostile neighbors (excepting Cuba, of course), China is hemmed in by island chains that are owned by nation-states with longstanding territorial disputes with China. Supply lines across the Pacific from the Panama Canal or South America pass nearby U.S. territory on the way.

Furthermore, China has neither a true blue-water navy nor a robust network of forward bases, and cannot project naval power long distances from the mainland. In short, the People’s Liberation Army Navy cannot protect its supply lines for energy back to the sources, which are typically in the Middle East for oil, or Australia for coal.

The distant interdiction portion of the campaign would aim to define energy supplies as contraband and to intercept, board and intern vessels carrying energy supplies to China. This would include vessels that are Chinese-flagged and foreign-flagged ships carrying energy to China. The vast majority of ships, which are container ships, are of no interest and can be allowed through, but petroleum tankers (oil, oil products and LPG) and bulk coal carriers would be boarded, seized and interned. The nature of these ship designs makes them the easiest to identify and greatly simplifies the execution of a blockade.

Under threat of attack, neutral ships may elect to avoid the conflict area, carrying other cargoes to other ports. There is little profit in attempting to deliver bulk cargo while risking damage or loss of the ship. Under such conditions insurance rates typically rise, and the premium for a brief exposure may reach upwards of 10 percent the market value of the vessel, plus cargo value. The internment of Chinese-flagged vessels or neutrals with contraband bound for China is a compound-interest challenge.

Every internment not only removes the current cargo from the delivery sequence, but removes all subsequent cargoes that might have been carried by that ship. In the case of very large crude carriers (VLCCs), that can account for very large cargoes indeed. At this time, there are less than 100 Chinese-flagged VLCCs, accounting for under a sixth of the worldwide VLCC stock. Given the favorable geography, the U.S. Navy would not have to spread out far in order to interdict these ships, and may even block chokepoints outside Asia, like the Bab El Mandeb or Strait of Hormuz.

In 2014 an average of around 11 to 15 VLCCs transited the Straits of Malacca on any given date, traveling in both directions. Not all of these were bound for China, and a tanker may in fact carry oil for several destinations on a single voyage. A naval task force, supported by air, could intercept a significant number of these ships and interrupt their transit, either loaded or during the return voyage. Each ship that delivers cargo to China is subject to seizure on the return, providing two seizure opportunities on a single voyage.

Targets

Sample targets were compiled for this analysis. The largest target category is rail lines, which are broken at tunnel entrances and bridges to make repair time consuming and difficult. There are 32 targets chosen (white targets) to interdict coal transport (mostly exiting Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces) and international coal and oil imports.

All of the rail transport from these two coal-producing provinces plus Inner Mongolia is interdicted, blocking movement of 70 percent of the country’s domestic coal. All railway border crossings were interdicted on the Chinese side. Thirty-two additional rail targets (yellow targets) were selected to shatter the rail transportation network, mostly at river crossings, which are intended to have a secondary effect of blocking shipping channels.

Every railroad bridge along the Yangtze 500 nautical miles upstream from Shanghai is on the list. Combined with additional railroad bridges across other waterways, the rail links between north and south China are severed, excepting only the high-speed passenger lines which are only broken at the Yangtze. Every one of the country’s top ten freight corridors is broken in at least one place. Road bridges were only targeted across the Yangtze River (to block ship traffic) or when roads and railroads shared a bridge. Road tunnels were targeted only if adjacent to rail tunnel targets.

Pipelines accounted for six targets (orange), inside China’s borders, usually by targeting pumping stations but also the pipeline itself. There are 32 refinery targets (red), all allocated to refineries producing jet fuel, kerosene, and/or adjacent to strategic petroleum reserves. Distillation towers, rail terminals, rail access, power plants, and pumping stations consisted of the majority of aimpoints, with two to 10 aimpoints per refinery.

Water terminals were left alone unless directly attached to a refinery. Some refineries were isolated by cutting the rail approaches at bridges and otherwise leaving the refinery alone. Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites were targeted when adjacent to refineries but not if otherwise located.

There are 39 inshore targets, all minefields (blue). Those minefields accounted for all PLAN bases and all large oil terminals, plus the mouths of the Yangtze and Pearl rivers. No river mining was conducted upstream of any river mouth. Only two minefields are offshore, both at oil terminals in the South China Sea, all others were within the 12 mile limit and often within the three mile limit. Because of the uncertainty involved with mining in defended airspace, most coastal refineries were double or triple-tapped, in that their rail links and refining capacity was directly attacked in addition to mining. Mined oil terminals are essentially double-tapped with the distant interdiction pillar.

No military facilities were directly targeted, nor were communications, underground petroleum storage, air defenses, commercial power plants, coal load/offload facilities, space control, space launch or leadership targets.

Effects

The direct effect of an SI strategy on PRC power projection capabilities cannot be precisely predicted from the data available from open sources. The goal of depriving PLAN and PLAAF forces of jet fuel will not be accomplished within a few weeks.

While China has no strategic reserve for refined petroleum products, it does have commercial storage, plus (presumably) military storage of undetermined size and composition. Diversion from civilian use and reallocation of refinery resources are probable, but both of those efforts will be hampered by interference with transportation; reallocation of production may be prevented by damage to refineries.

A detailed analysis of the anticipated effects is both beyond the scope of this white paper and not suitable for public dissemination in any case. What is certain is that an energy denial strategy will have immediate effects on the PRC. Interdiction of oil imports will force both an immediate reallocation of resources and likely cause a dip into the strategic reserve. A reduction of coal imports will have a rapid effect on power generation, although a reduction in industrial power use could mitigate the effects of power shortages.

Any perturbations, including physical damage, against the rail transportation system will ripple through the country – the system is over capacity as it is and even weather events disrupt rail transport. Damage to refineries simply cannot be mitigated rapidly — these are the softest of soft targets and even relatively minor damage can cause a refinery to shut down.