| By Raphaël P.P. Dosson |

Trump’s recent claims on the Panama Canal and the annexation of Greenland in the Arctic Circle have brought to the fore one of the most paramount notions of geopolitics: command of the sea. “Who rules the waves rules the world.” This has been the single most determining factor in the development of the international system and the reason for the West’s dominance of the world since Albuquerque, for more than half a millennium. Today, as the tectonic plates of power seem to shift from the U.S. to China, the replacement of system leadership will be determined by naval power and maritime geostrategy.

The state of China’s development and national security, as well as its potential to attain global leadership, remains severely constrained by its precarious maritime geostrategic configuration. Moreover, the closer China comes to eclipsing U.S. power, the more threatened the strategic maritime chokepoints in the South and East China Seas—particularly those critical to its vast energy trade—become, the more severe the security dilemma grows, and the greater the risk of war emerging along these fault lines.

China is the first and fastest-growing economy in history (measured by PPP, accounting for 18% of global GDP), boasts the highest manufacturing and industrial capacity (30% of the world’s output), holds the largest share of world trade (12%), is the top trading partner to more than 120 countries, and hosts the largest military personnel as well as the world’s largest population since the establishment of the PRC in 1949. This meteoric rise has been fueled by massive trends of industrialization, urbanization, and globalization. Correspondingly, the material basis of this enormous economic growth has driven a proportional increase in energy consumption. Here, not only China’s prosperous ascent but also the very foundation of the CCP’s authoritarian, performance-based legitimacy has been made possible through the combination of economic prosperity and energy growth.

This burst has placed China in what is called the “deadly triangle”: a persistent dilemma involving rapid growth, severe energy shortages, and the resulting escalation of militarization and strategization in Asia. This triangle becomes even more pronounced as U.S.-China rivalry approaches a critical threshold of transition. Today, these pressures intersect in the most decisive domain of geopolitics and power competition: the “command of the sea”—particularly through the maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca.

China is the world’s largest energy consumer, accounting for 25% of global energy consumption and 15% of all oil used globally. Its total primary energy demand surged from 1,800 Mtoe in 2000 to over 4,500 Mtoe in 2020. Since 2000, China’s oil consumption has quadrupled—from 3.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) to over 15 mb/d in 2025. In parallel, China has become the world’s second-largest consumer of LNG (maritime-supplied gas), accounting for 16% of global LNG demand.

As the largest consumer of both oil and LNG, it follows that China is also the world’s largest importer. Around 80% of China’s oil is imported, and imports are projected to increase by 3% annually over the next five years. Despite policy goals to peak oil consumption by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, this growing reliance on foreign energy sources poses colossal strategic vulnerabilities.

Although China still ranks as the 6th-largest holder of oil reserves, its domestic production has failed to keep pace with consumption since 1993—when oil demand first exceeded domestic output. This marked the beginning of China’s energy dependence on foreign sources, placing it in an increasingly precarious geostrategic position. Since 2006, more than 60% of China’s energy consumption has come from imports, coinciding with a considerable decline in energy security. Crucially, China’s imported oil that transits by sea is not supplementary—it is essential.

Nearly all maritime energy imports pass through a single strategic chokepoint: the Strait of Malacca. All of China’s energy sea lines of communication (SLOCs) converge through this strait. Each year, $3.5 trillion worth of trade—equivalent to one-third of global GDP—passes through the Strait of Malacca, including two-thirds of China’s total trade volume, over 83% of its oil imports, and approximately 16 mb/d of oil and 3.2 mb/d of LNG. Roughly 6.4 billion deadweight tons (dwt) of cargo pass through the strait annually, with about 10 vessels entering or exiting every hour. Most of these shipments consist of fossil fuels from the Middle East and Africa.

As China shifts away from coal in its energy transition, its reliance on overseas oil—especially to power its urban centers—will only increase. Strategic initiatives like “Made in China 2025” and the long-term vision of building an “Ecological Civilization” by 2060 show no indication of reducing dependence on seaborne oil or on the Malacca Strait.

Although China currently receives about 3.7 mb/d of oil through overland pipelines and plans to expand capacity to 9 mb/d, this still falls far short of covering the nearly 15 mb/d it consumes. In the short term, China’s dependence on the Strait of Malacca—and on maritime oil imports more broadly—is set to deepen.

The volume of energy and trade that flows through this region reveals China’s greatest strategic—yet largely unexploited—vulnerability: what former President Hu Jintao called the “Malacca Dilemma.” This refers to China’s limited alternatives for energy supply routes and its exposure to potential naval blockades or sea denial. The alarming ease with which SLOCs could be disrupted—and China’s energy lifeline neutralized by U.S.-led coalitions—has been a central geostrategic concern of the CCP since 2003.

At its narrowest point, the Strait of Malacca is less than 2.5 kilometers wide and only 23 meters deep. Control over this chokepoint is contested, and its waters overlap the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore—none of which fully recognize each other’s claims. These regional powers have all, at various times, attempted to assert control over navigation through the strait. Meanwhile, external powers like Japan, the United States, and India frequently justify their military presence in the area under the pretext of combating piracy—despite piracy being largely negligible in this region.

The Strait of Malacca is a strategic chokepoint that the US has long sought to dominate. With its “pivot to Asia,” Washington has aimed to establish geostrategic preeminence, contain China’s rise, and control the flow of global energy. The reconcentration of military forces in bases such as Guam, Diego Garcia, Okinawa, Kyushu, and Luzon in the Philippines—about which Dr. Spencer-Churchill notes that “America can’t win a war for Taiwan without the Philippines”—demonstrates more than mere gunboat diplomacy. It signals the U.S.’s ability, should it deem necessary, to shut down the strait and sever China’s access to critical oil imports.

According to theories of power transition, the closer China comes to matching U.S. power, the greater the risk of conflict—particularly through blockades. As Brzezinski predicted, the U.S. remains determined to preserve its hegemonic position and is unlikely to tolerate the emergence of a peer competitor. This explains its continuous efforts to counter China’s expansion, and in some scenarios, even consider pre-emptive action. As the so-called “deadly triangle” sharpens and as U.S. dominance over the international system wanes, control over the Strait of Malacca becomes one of the last critical levers Washington holds to contain Beijing.

Power transition theories (i.e., hegemony theory) suggest that strong moves toward external balancing and the formation of counter-coalitions are key indicators of an ongoing or overdue systemic transition. In this light, the U.S. posture in the region—through initiatives such as the so-called “Mini-NATO,” more commonly represented in the QUAD and AUKUS—reflects efforts to rally regional partners to resist China’s growing influence. This strategy of denial has taken the form of a strategic encirclement through the First Island Chain, linking Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. The overarching objective is to restrict China’s EEZ expansion and sustain a form of economic and geopolitical neo-containment.

More importantly—and this is what makes the Strait of Malacca decisively strategic—if China were to seize Taiwan by force, the United States, which has long committed itself to maintaining regional security (not only in Taiwan but also in Japan and South Korea), would be compelled to intervene. In doing so, Washington would likely seek to blockade China through the strait, effectively severing its access to critical resource imports. This is crucial, as Mearsheimer notes: if a war were to break out between the U.S. and China in East Asia, it would likely become a prolonged war of attrition, in which economic resilience and access to energy would determine the eventual victor.

China is well aware that even a short-term disruption in supply could prove devastating. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, China’s economy suffered a significant shock, paying an additional 4.5 billion yuan in energy import costs and experiencing an almost 1% drop in GDP growth the following year. This vulnerability highlights the strategic importance of secure and uninterrupted supply chains.

If geopolitical instability were to intensify—such as a potential crisis in Iran—or if strategic chokepoints became more contested, any rerouting of oil through alternative routes like the Sunda, Lombok, or Makassar Straits would add 220 billion US$ per year. Even then, China would remain within the strategic reach of the AUKUS and QUAD coalitions.

The case of Japan in 1941 perfectly illustrates this dilemma. At the time, Japan faced similarly dire geostrategic constraints: with 80% of its oil imported from the United States and under threat of embargo, it had only two options—concede to American demands or launch a preemptive strike. It chose the latter, attacking Pearl Harbor, drawing the U.S. into World War II, and ultimately triggering a four-year conflict that ended in nuclear devastation.

The intensifying containment strategy by Asian powers across the First—and now Second—Island Chain, along with the growing securitization of Taiwan, could push China to preemptively assert control over strategic points in the region. While China remains officially committed to a strategy of peaceful rise and minimizing the security dilemma in Asia, it is increasingly less willing—or able—to compromise security for power. This is because the maritime power China seeks abroad is directly tied to the security deficits it faces both domestically and internationally:

Domestically, China faces mounting internal pressure as it approaches the final stage of its national transformation. The CCP’s authoritarian legitimacy increasingly hinges on achieving what it has long promised: the reunification of Taiwan.

Externally, China’s claim to Da Guo (大国) status depends on its ability to act like a great power—particularly through the expansion of its naval influence and maritime/EEZ reach. Achieving this level of status and recognition requires breaching the geographic confines of the First Island Chain and the Malacca Strait. This objective is strategically tied to Taiwan, which offers a crucial springboard into the Pacific and a decisive route for overcoming maritime containment.

First, assuming great power status is essential for the stability of the international system: As the world’s leading economic and trading power, China is already—at least in some form—expected to assume a quasi-hegemonic role, one that involves maintaining the stability of the international economy and ensuring the security of global markets. Fulfilling this role requires a stronger naval presence or “fleet in being.” As Walter Raleigh aptly stated, “For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.” This imperative is not only about safeguarding China’s own supply chains and economic interests but also about preventing a systemic collapse akin to the Great Depression of 1929—a collapse that could occur amid today’s power transition, much like the one that followed the shift from British to American hegemony.

Second, history shows that no power has endured without a strong naval force. According to hegemony theories, the ultimate stage of great power rivalry is determined at sea. At present, China remains largely confined to the continental shelf and lacks true blue-water naval capacity to project force beyond its EEZ. As both a natural imperative and a strategic necessity, China will relentlessly pursue greater maritime security—whether through military buildup, force projection capabilities, or strategic infrastructure investment. While Beijing continues to promote its doctrine of “peaceful rise,” the strategic imperatives it faces may leave it with little alternative but to develop and deploy hard maritime power to maintain strategic leverage and preserve its negotiating position.

As the world’s emerging leading great power and largest net importer of energy, China’s greatest vulnerability lies in the geopolitics of the sea—and with it, its energy security—all converging at the Strait of Malacca.

The modernization of China’s military and naval capabilities has not been the result of an eagerly pursued aggressive agenda but rather a contingent strategy aimed at narrowing its geostrategic vulnerabilities and adapting to the evolving dynamics of the international system (e.g., the rise of hegemonic competition, the securitization of Taiwan, US coalition-AUKUS/QUAD external balancing, and the strategic challenge of breaking through the First Island Chain).

As the parameters of the global power transition shift toward multipolarity, the Indo-Pacific—and particularly its maritime chokepoints—will serve as the epicenter of systemic redistribution. Asia’s waterways, above all the Strait of Malacca and surrounding seas, emerge as the most strategically significant maritime zones of the 21st century.

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Raphaël P.P. Dosson is a graduate researcher at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, with a Master’s degree from the University of Groningen, a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Concordia University. Specializing in international security and Southeast Asian studies, his research focuses on power dynamics, great power rivalry, and nuclear strategy. Raphaël has worked as a research assistant at the Partnership for Global Security (PGS) in Washington, D.C., and at the French Military School’s Department for Higher Studies (DEMS). He is currently a PhD candidate in political science, exploring global power shifts in an increasingly multipolar world. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raphael-Dosson